I’d like to share this old post from my Medium page with you, and I hope you see something in it that gives you a reason to find happiness in confusing times.
The shopworn apothegm that says, “Happiness is free,” may be momentarily valid for a significant number of people, but it’s not for those who find the experience of euphoria hard to come by.
Real-life drama, on many occasions, can make the acquisition of happiness impossible. Still, there are ways we can revitalize our energies and ensure that low tides don’t linger for long times. These are seven working practices that will help us escape the gloom room when the lights go out.
1. Let Little Things Excite You
One way to be happy in life is through contentment. We must learn to appreciate the privileges life avails us at all times, and never take anything for granted.
Life is full of sad stories, and everything that breathes has its own. We’re not alone in suffering as we may think: it’s a property of existence.
The question of why people suffer is one we’ll never get an answer to till we take our last puff of creatural air.
We wrongly look for happiness in this great world when it’s hidden in infinitesimal sources. The smile of a child, a song from the past, a happy memory, the touch of a loved one, the sound of nature, the aroma of good food, and an exciting story are some of the little bits of life that can induce joy and soothe the pain that sometimes seems like an existential accessory.
The ability to derive joy from little things is a piece of ourselves we must not lose to sadness. If we relinquish it and let it drown in the abyss of our dark hours, the search for happiness may become a futile venture.
So we must guard our little joy-givers jealously and treat them with kindness, especially our sweet memories. These immaterial tangibles are sure tickets to bliss if we can unlock them.
2. Practice The Art Of Giving
Givers get the most. A little act of kindness will turn your world around. The kindle we give to others lights our paths. These are maxims that remind us of the unquantifiable joy in giving and that happiness can be a good disease; it’s transferable.
Every day, we come in contact with people in need, and they present us with the opportunity to alleviate their woes, however big or small. They give us a chance to help them experience happiness which in turn infects us with the same. Happiness can be viral, and the reward for giving is the priceless feeling of the joyful release that accompanies it.
3. Celebrate Every Victory
Life can be exacting, but it’s never without purple patches. We must take every fortunate experience with gleeful hearts and create lasting memories. We don’t get enough good times to waste our small portions of bliss when we do find them.
We have a natural propensity to misestimate our successes and blind ourselves from the minor achievements we call little victories. But they are only small because we refuse to magnify them in our mind’s eyes. By allowing ourselves to feel excited every time we achieve any form of progress, our lives become fuller, and existence acquires greater meaning.
4. Live In The Moment
Living in the moment is a clichèd advice to which many of us have problems of adherence. We hear it every day like all other items on this list, but we do not put it into practice.
Our worries will live forever. When we die, the next generation will pick up from where we stopped because problems are the fuel of existence. It’s why humanity persists, for the glory of decoding the next puzzle.
We must accept that worrying is a human foible; it’s inescapable. But we must train our minds to find their way out of the maze of tortuous times. Life will constantly thrust us into situations beyond the understanding of our mortal minds, but we need not let tomorrow’s uncertainties deny us of today’s pleasures.
5. Set Attainable Goals
In our bid to find purpose, there’s a tendency for overexertion that culminates in exhaustion. The focus of our strife should be our progress and not immediate results.
We need to slow down — we can’t burn all the calories in a day. When we overburden ourselves with tasks in our pursuit of purpose, there is always the chance that we may lose ourselves or die untimely deaths, even as we live.
We make life harder for ourselves by trying to do it all at once. We reach for the highest branch from the lowest rung; it’s why we don’t reap the fruits of our labours at times. Accepting that growth is incremental and that our little victories today will eventually add up to be our success stories tomorrow are convictions that can help us live better lives and reduce happiness-sapping stress.
6. Always Be Positive
When we find ourselves between rocks and hard places, and the answers to life’s questions are not forthcoming, we must never forget to speak the language of hope.
Someone once told me that, “hope is the currency of existence.”
With hope, we can get through the strongest storms and overcome the tallest hurdles. Hope is why the farmer buries his seeds in the taciturn soil. It is what dries the barren woman’s tears. It is what we buy from the medicine shop to cure our ailments.
We should let hope wake us every morning and guide us through our days. We should surrender our troubles to the assuring notion of better times.
But we must be cautious of hope without action — it’s useless. Hope should only be a place we go to find our energies and feed our minds with the expectation of improvement. Positivity requires conscious practice, and we must remember to visit hope every time we feel the absence of happiness.
7. Love Yourself
Lastly, it’s okay to love the world and wish the best for humanity, but all these without self-love can drain one beyond redemption. Loving the world should not be an excuse to neglect personal welfare.
The inner world is just as important as the world without. If we think we can impact the world positively while denying ourselves the experience of peace within, then we’re only empty vessels trying to fill a river.
The repercussion of not loving ourselves is the elusive satisfaction for which we tirelessly rummage through the cosmos. It’s within us — true happiness is internally generated by taking care of ourselves and reserving some of our generosity for the man in the mirror.
AkowekoWura 