I have been an self-made-inner-peace-researcher for many years
:P .. And I often find myself thinking
about this topic.
Happiness for me are the moments, when I have had no more
questions for myself and no self-judgment, just the feelings of pure ecstasy. I
had a lot of these in my earlier life (I cared only for my own happiness). I
have felt some of such moments on my mad pursuit of happiness when:
1) I hid things from my parents to do all the
censored things that I thought of doing in my life, just for the sake of experience, all things a young girl's mind
would love to do :D But then, there are
side effects of every such thing because of which our parents had put
restrictions on us, to keep us safe.
2) I have pursued my favorite hobbies like going
out on trips with friends/hubby, savoring on all special delicacies of different
places , doing a hell lot of adrenaline-stimulating adventures and forcing friends/hubby
to do the same :D But little did I know then, that I would not
be in contact with most of these friends, with whom I had such intense moments!!
3) I married the man of my dreams after a long courtship,
purchased my dream lehenga with my savings, when all I could hear everywhere
around me were stories of heart-breaking broken relationships of my friends. But
I had no idea then, that marriage is no joke but a life full of
responsibilities and fulfilling the wishes of two huge families.
4) Dumped my boring job immediately at the drop of a hat, to live in
Dubai with my hubby, and to enjoy all the wonderful, blissful stuff which you
will rarely get to enjoy in India. I hardly thought of my parents and in-laws
who were growing old rapidly in India , and of my identity which I was going to lose
along with my career.
Whereas, satisfaction is when you have the correct
and a satisfactory answer to all the questions in your mind about yourself. As
I grew up, and slowly faced the other not-so-good side of every happiness
that I would madly pursue, I became matured , or rather say calculative. I always
started thinking about my happiness vs. others happiness, because once I
started doing things for other’s happiness, their smiles became addictive for
me. I found that my actions leading to others happiness
ACTUALLY had no side-effects. It lead to something called “Satisfaction” which
has a much deeper meaning since it is not an temporary emotion like
happiness. Now I willingly sacrifice a lot many things just for the sake of my
family , I love to see the smiles on their faces. It gives me a lot of satisfaction .. something not as intense as happiness, but surely much more lasting. Now I
sometimes donate when I can, and I am much kinder to people who are not as
fortunate as I am.
Not that I don’t do anything now for the
sake of my own happiness, I do a lot of that still! But yes, I don’t get as mad,
if I don’t get the opportunity to pursue my own happiness because I know , in
the end , I am trading it for something called satisfaction ! It keeps my mind
calm and gives me a good night’s sleep. :) :)
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