This is the biggest truth. Each human being, whether the person lives in Kathmandu or New York city, whether the person is PhD or high school drop-out, male or female, young or old, poor or billionaire, has the same desire: Everyone wants to be happy.
I have asked one question to many people around me, though I am not a journalist, just for the sake of my own research and curiosity.
What do you want in life?
The overwhelming majority of people said, they want to be happy.
And I followed them with another question, what makes you happy?
Almost ninety five percent have no clear answer.
They smile, mumble, some say material things, many say hypothetical imagination, few say well…I…. want….to…but no specifics.
Many of us can’t answer because we don’t know exactly what makes us happy.
We have never done research or study on our happiness.
If we study about us, our attitude, our interest, our style, our habit, and our reaction, then only we can tell what makes us happy.
We can not try happiness. There is no such thing trying happiness.
We can not lean towards happiness. If we lean, we fall down.
Because happiness is a commitment.
Majority of people are not happy because they don’t commit on it.
I would like to share a story, one of my mentors told me.
One newly hired salesman asked to his manager, “How can I become happy?”
The manager replied, “If you sell this cell phone today, you not only be happy yourself, you also make me happy.”
He went door to door to sell the cell phone all day, but nobody bought it.
It was 10 pm at night, he was going home.
Suddenly something came in his mind and he knocked one house door.
One gentleman opened the door and said, “What do you want?”
He replied, “Do you want to buy this cell phone, no down payment?”
The man screamed, “No, get lost.” He slammed the door.
He went to another house, knocked the door.
An old lady opened the door, he asked “Could you buy this cell phone, no down payment?”
Old lady said, “No, are you crazy? It’s 11 pm.”
The salesman politely asked, “Do you know anybody who is interested?”
She replied, “My cousin who lives three blocks down the road is interested.”
The salesman went there, knocked the door hesitantly at midnight and said, “Your aunt told me that you want to buy the cell phone, with no down payment.”
The man said, “Come in.”
When you help others to make them happy, you become the happiest person yourself.
Commit to become happy.
Former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said very eloquently, “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
Happiness is same thing as love, we don’t need anything to express love. Love speaks itself.
We only feel happiness, I am happy.
To activate happiness, we must, in first place, know ourself.
Happiness can make our life three hundred percent healthier and fulfilled, if we identify it.
The question is.
How do you activate happiness?
Dig deep inside your life and find your two favorite things or two places or two people that make you happy. Ask yourself how much do you really know about these two?
You will find the answer and say, ‘I don’t know much.’
Your relationship with these favorite two is shallow, you don’t see firmness of your purpose and stability with them.
These two just soak up your life, deep down you know they don’t make you happy.
To activate real happiness, we must learn and commit more about us than these two favorites, that we think make us happy.
Happiness is not something that you saw last week in Boston, so you want to have it now.
It is also not any profession or place or thing that your best friend told you about so that you want to pursue.
Don’t waste time and energy on things to become happy without knowing who you are.
Michael Jordan was born to be a happier basketball player but Aristotle, as a happier philosopher and scientist.
Happiness is not same for all. It is internal and designed by our individual mind-configuration.
Happiness is individual.
I have seen the happiest people in the world. When I was growing up in a village, I had one friend who used to fish everyday, used to collect crabs all day. Now he has one hundred fisheries.
I have seen the most unhappy people who has millions of dollars in the bank account, but he uses drug every single day to seek happiness.
Dig deeper inside you; learn, research and commit about yourself first, then you will be able to create your own happiness.
Superficiality is not happiness; happiness is your depth.
Never ever try to buy happiness, it’s never be on sale. The only thing we can buy is pleasure, which is completely different from happiness.
I can go movie and buy two hours happiness, nope, two hours pleasure.
Many people go to beach to become happy, but when they reach there, they feel bored after certain time, and they seek another thing to be happy. They come home with tiredness.
If you are not happy at home before to go beach, you will not be happy at the beach.
Throughout my life, I saw my father always happy when he was around cattle, raise them, feed them, and milk them. I always saw him happy because I saw true authentic expression inside him doing that. No matter the profession, if we don’t produce vigor, we remain unhappy. Vigor is the process of doing the task, not the end-result.
If you have vigor on anything you do, you fill the dead space between activities in your life, which creates the ultimate happiness.
Our life is made up of dead spaces between our daily activities.
My father taught me, “Don’t do anything to impress others, fill the dead spaces in your life. This is a key of happiness.”
But I was not happy doing cattle activities as my dad. I still don’t know three hundred percent what makes me happy. I have only a sense of it.
But everyday I am working on it, and I’m sure one day I will find it out.
I can provide you a hint, you can activate happiness in your life by four things: health, family, relationship, and experiences.
Connect these four dots in your own way, while doing that you will find a process. Devote on that process, you will be happy forever.
Dig deep inside you and carry your body and mind with these four dots: health, family, relationship and experience.
I am three hundred percent sure; you will create your own happiness.
Remember, our time on earth is limited, so spend with your choice because happiness is only your choice to commit for an interest, and nothing more.
Because, you must have an interest in life just to keep living happily.
Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina