Path to Happiness (Be Yourself)

Before I begin to share my knowledge and experience in this, I want to make it clear that I am not a highly learned individual, nor am I a reincarnation of such beings who has limitless wisdom throughout many lifetimes. This disclaimer is important, because the article is about the real you, and not someone who you'd want to be. In modern society, the scholars and pundits preach that, you should NEVER show your weakness or admit that you don't know. They consider it as a weakness and that you are setting yourself up for a failure from the beginning. But that's different in the philosophy that I practice. In my case, we were always taught to present yourself as inferior to the next person (perception is not reality), to show respect to all beings, to learn as much as you can to be better, so you can help limitless sentient beings. The danger of acting like you know everything, is that some in today's world will take it too far and stop learning. That's when it could become a tragedy. When reality sink in, and they realize that they are no better than the next person, or that they aren't well liked by others, then they resort to unimaginable things, which is a discussion for another topic. So we need to be honest with ourselves and be who we are, in order to find happiness.

So who am I and what is it that I'd like to share with you? I am a simple person just like your friends, who just happened to practice love, compassion, tolerance, un-attachment and contentment in my everyday life, to live a simple, happy, and a contented life. Over the past 40 years, I have learned to follow and practice those principles; while making mistakes, and correcting them. The goal is to become just a little smarter, happier, and more compassionate in my everyday life. I still make "unintentional" mistakes here and there, but doing my best to correct them, with remorse, and try not to repeat them again. It's like climbing a ladder of truth, without supervision. This is the foundation of seeking happiness. You need to be you, and you need to be honest with yourself. If you can't do that, then you need to be a good actor to deceive yourself, and people around you; and constantly be the person that you really aren't. That's an extremely difficult job. It's just a matter of time. Either you'll fail at it someday or someone will expose the real you and the real truth. Then instead of finding happiness, you create your own sorrow.

So what do you do, when pain and suffering strikes? How can you be you, and still tackle suffering and find happiness? How can you find happiness without pretending to be someone else? We know the easiest thing to do in such situation is to resolve to external things, beauty, and pleasure. But those are all temporary fixes to a non-temporary situation. Some advice others to renounce themselves, and take on another life, another name, and be someone else to find happiness. Some do it voluntarily to leave the self behind and become a completely different identity, with the hope that they'll leave the sorrow and pain behind as well. This is extremely dangerous. If my brother was having a difficult time in life, I wouldn't suggest him to change his name to Bill Gates, and act like Bill Gates, try to follow some religion or faith, and act like that is the savior. It's a very dangerous path that you lead someone into. Out of 1 million people who follow such advice, only 10 individuals may come out on the other side a little happier and more knowledgeable in dealing with suffering. Rest of the 999,990 will fail in such conversion and acting. This will lead to many devastating results. You may lose your family, friends, career and your precious time of your life pretending to be someone else. Worst case scenario, when you come back to the reality, would you be able to handle the reality of life again? Reality of life is Joy, Suffering, Happiness, and Pain. It's part of life. There's no escaping from that. All that glitters is not gold. You may see and envy people in power or people with money living an extravagant life. All you see is what's on the outside. You do not see their mental stress and problems. They go through the exact same joy, happiness, pain, and suffering in their life and their family's lives as we do. You need to understand that. So you can't be envious of other's glamour on Instagram or on TV. In most cases, this is exactly what they wanted you to see. Who in the world will showcase their family, business, and career problems on Instagram and TV? No one will do that. But everyone has these own issues in one form or the other. So there's no point in envying them, renouncing your life for someone else's. It won't bring you the eternal happiness.

So then how can you find the true happiness by being who you are? To practice this, you first need to come to terms with the reality of life. Reality of life is not all happiness and all fun, as mentioned before. It also has the negative side to it, which is pain and sorrow. After we accept the reality of life, then we need to find out how to avoid them, followed by how to deal with them as they come or arise. A lot of our problems are self-made. Of course those who cannot accept such statement will always find others to blame for the problems they "unintentionally" created in the first place. Let's take a simple example of stress in a business world. For a sales guy, stress in business is usually a result of not achieving the sales goals. Now the goals are set by us, humans. So you see where it's going? This is closely tied with our inability as a society to understand and practice contentment. In most cases, if you have made a decent profit in business, you shall celebrate. Now, due to our greed, we set high sales goals, and every day of our life, when we don't make that goal, we become sad and stressed. In all these days, the business is making profit, and can still function. But the only reason we are not satisfied is because of the high bar we created for ourselves. So such is a simple example of how our stress and problems are created. This is why I say that most of our stresses and issues are man-made or self-made. Now when such stress continue on a daily basis, the sales person will go home and show this unhappy attitude at home to wife and children as well. In process, he's making them all miserable. And is all caused by the human greed and not practicing contentment. There is a legitimate reason for us to feel sad, and that is when we don't succeed in business. This means, when the business is not making profit, then it's a legitimate cause for concern. In such problem, there are other solutions, which we can talk about another time. But in this example, the cause of our self-made stress is greed and our inability to practice contentment.

There are many more example of these problems that we create for ourselves in our daily lives, in many different professions. But today I just wanted to focus on finding happiness by being true to yourself and accepting the realities of life first. Always remember that the key to happiness is not located anywhere else in the world, but in your own heart. Sometimes we think money solves problems. No, trust me. Money brings temporary relief in some practical cases, but the problems of life will still be with us. So we need to be true to ourselves, in our abilities, and most importantly, we need to always find ways to better ourselves, so we can understand the true causes of our problems, and we strive to find solutions to each one of them.

May my observations and experiences help you in finding and identifying the causes of your various stresses and dealing with them in the most appropriate manner. Everything takes time. So learn by your mistake, and try not to make the same mistake again, which will eliminate one problem and stress at a time.

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Parents And Children's Behavior - Points to Ponder

At home little things are even more important. The behaviors of parents and children have its profound effect. It makes huge difference in parents and children's personality and psychology. Scholar's view in the following paragraph is self-explanatory:

"The beginning of both spouse and child abuse can be found in seemingly insignificant things, such as belittling the abilities and competency of another, constantly criticizing, being insulting or calling names, refusing to communicate, manipulating, causing guilt fleeing, repeatedly making and breaking promises, intimidating, threatening physical harm, making unfolded accusations, or destroying property."

It is a two-way traffic and has its impact evidently in their respective lives both positively and negatively. The point to ponder is to understand individual's rights and responsibilities. They both need to execute it emphatically and judiciously. Any deviation and distortion from the right path at the behest of materialistic gain will deeply affect them alike. A word of caution, they must think out of the box to comprehend the reality of life and its meaning the context of creation.

It is a fact that people learn from their mistakes and failures rather from their success. This particular experience becomes a tool to shape up own house and impart rich culture to younger generations. The transformation of constructive attributes will positively show improvement in personality. It then teaches them that respect is earned through command and not by demand. Here, it is important to emphasize that The Holy Quran highlights 'Dignity' apart from respect. This is the crucial and cardinal intersection that catapults the youth into the orbit of knowledge and wisdom. It gives parents a sense of pride to see their offspring achieve success and fame.

The youth will then be exposed to new vistas of behavior, which follows the foot-steps of wise people and becomes the beacon of light to others. This is the after-effects of adopting and molding individual's personality into meaningful ways. He not only improves upon self but also gathers others into the umbrella of sense and sensibility. At this point, the youth takes over the mantle and starts learning advancement of knowledge and its application. The self-confidence makes him strong and determined in self-improvement and also contributing to the society. It ultimately leads to development of the mind, which synchronizes with self-improvement and personality development.

There are many tools available to achieve success affecting different people in varying circumstances. Steve Tobak says that it is not intrinsic characteristic or personal habits that determine success or failure. It is your behavior. It means; it is an individual's discipline both in home and in working environments. It reflects your attitude, commitments and flexibility to understand and execute the values.

Analyzing the above scenario objectively will focus our mind on the existing circumstances in our society. The life is progressing with an accelerating pace forcing parents and children a daunting task to meet both the ends. It develops cracks in the delicate fabric of family relationship. Both expect more commitments from each other. Hence strained relationship, and families started to drift and seek solace somewhere else. This is the focal point where parents need to inculcate values in children and make them realize where to draw the line. The children need to understand their position and avoid excesses thereby losing their balance in life.

Parents should also realize that children during this era are exposed to more avenues to learn and understand ethical values. Parents who are ignorant of new vistas of knowledge expose lack experience. Their stagnant intelligence and rigidity in life are depriving their appreciation to gauge the situation. It then, denies the necessity to listen and understand to their children's mind. Of-course, their rich experience can be shared with children who in turn analyze it and adopt those values. Healthy interaction and critical discussion with each other objectively can be of great value to both.

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Poverty And Poor Mentality

Although the subject expands into sizable length of pages, however, I am exploring the core concept of the theme. It is defined that poverty is multifaceted covering social, economic and political concepts. The body's most basic need is the food. Subsequently, it follows the dwelling, and later it needs to be governed to meet both the ends. Since, our existence from time immemorial until the present era, people are divided into two distinct categories viz; the rich and the poor. However, the not so poor are labeled as middle class.

Poverty which signifies, and associates with poor people have it own checks and balances. The majority of people suffer from economic hardship and drift aimlessly into wilderness of ignorance and become arrogant. This particular aspects boost their unacceptable behavior, which affects the rest of people in the dwellings. Of-course it is not a thumb rule, but it signifies reality of life. It is also a fact that the society in distinctive dwellings faces expectations and experience volatility of human mindset. Here, it is important to evaluate and understand the behavioral pattern under different circumstances.

The affluent class of people influence the law makers to modify rules and regulations, which govern their interests best. Accordingly, the government agencies alter the laws and by-laws at the cost of poor and middle class. It means that these people have to bear the burden of the wealthy people. This starts the resentment and stimulates arrogance among the poor.

The poor and middle-class people prioritize their needs in a myopic way. The reason is very obvious because of their immediate requirements and commitments. Their desire to follow the rich people's lifestyle makes them a victim of materialistic attachments. This rigmarole makes most of them vulnerable and frustration creeps in their mind. Consequently, their mindset adopts a typical mentality which is governed by jealousy. Gradually, this mindset develops a poor mentality which makes deep inroads in their lives' cycle. This damages their thinking to such an extent that even they become rich their thinking remained unaltered.

The part and parcel of stagnant intelligence are the manifestation of their lives' style. It also shapes their personality according to their mindset, which distinctively reflects myopic behavior in their married lives too. This is the crucial point on a crossroad of their scared relationship on marriage journey. The repercussions would be disastrous if measures are not taken in time and appropriately.

It is, therefore, necessary and desirable to ascertain their attitude and views on life prior to tying nuptial knot or establishing friendship. Psychologists and other doctrine of varying faith have expressed unequivocally and clearly to avoid these alliances. They emphasized that being poor is not a crime but having poor and ghetto mentality is cancerous. The lives of people from elite background, financially sound dwellings have suffered the greatest. They consider divorce will not only affect their own lives but also tarnish the children in a profound way. This reason alone is enough to make the poor mentality people to take upper hand.

The alternate is to analyze and carry out daily routine in a more practical aspect rather than follow ritual rites. It is a proven fact that these mentalities have its own views about lives' checks and balances. These people never budge an inch, and they become more adamant and develop a heavy negative mind. They also develop friendship with like-minded people and tried to Influence others to tag along with them.

Poor mentality is the attitude of a particular mindset which thrives on being ungrateful and unthankful. It is the manifestation of ignorance, which fails to see many opportunities in and around. Thus negativity creeps and absolved like wrap and weft of a fabric. A famous saying holds good," One rotten fish makes the pond's water dirty."

It is advised that such people should be treated with caution and mold them gradually to be more broad-minded and better human beings. They should be asked to join groups who are sensible and matured and encourage them to look beyond their narrow mind horizon. They should be reminded that opportunities do not knock the door repeatedly. They must swim with the rising tide failing which they will remain in shallow water.

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