If I say twenty one years of my life passed quite uneventfully, I would be telling a white lie ! Within these twenty one years, I have probably been through all sorts of trouble, all sorts of experiences and all sorts of revelations, that most may not go through.
I am not a single child and I was not brought up in a nuclear family either. I had all the basic comforts in life, but I never had any strong support from my family until recently. Now one might wonder, why this twenty one year old idiot is blabbering on and on giving out an air of negativity. If you think so, then my sincerest apologies, because I was merely pointing out the background of my coming revelation.
It is an old fact, one that has been said God knows how many times, one that people fall in awe with, but one that is rarely practiced. It is simple..so simple that you might say, 'Oh this ! This is your big one?!' with raised eyebrows. Well yes, that simple ' The key to true happiness lies within oneself'. I know the small bubble of hope might have deflated with flourish.
As I pointed out before, having to fend for myself and learning from my own disastrous mistakes has taught me to follow this principle. Try taming this and you will find it next to impossible. You may experiment and then find out for yourself. This difficulty arises because the basis of human nature is such that, we put a lot of our faith in other people or other things, thereby straining the result.
For example, I have seen my mother getting upset because my father does not have enough time to spend with her or because he gives attention to his friends. My father in turn, gets pissed because my mother is not willing to do her chores on time. Similarly, our hopes, expectations and outcomes from situations fluctuate the level of happiness we experience.
Now we have the problem at hand, what about the possible solution? I myself thought after my experiments that it is almost impossible to achieve happiness. However, I did not let go easily and have found three fairly sustainable solutions to keep this key of happiness with oneself.
The first one, the easier of the three, is the activity of DISTRACTION. This is something that can be easily practiced to drive your mind away from all that makes you grumpy and to lead your mind to something beneficial. For example, I have a passion for dance and enrolled myself in a dance school as a form of distraction. When putting in my 100% towards the art form, my mind rarely gets time to dwell on any other unwanted thoughts. Plus my energy gets channelized to something positive and creative, thereby evolving me as an individual.
The second, more tougher one is DETACHED ATTACHMENT. That is, to keep a safe distance away from what or who you normally attach yourself with. This will lower your expectation levels, thereby effectively reducing your chances of suffering or being disappointed. For example, I have always wanted my peer group to include me in all their activities. When they do something without me, especially something fun, then there is misery. Once you practice detached attachment these kind of unnecessary emotional outbreaks can be avoided.
The third and most difficult one is to keep your MIND in a HIGHER PLANE. Once this is achieved, then there is actually no need to practice the other two. That is, think of a larger picture when you are confronted with problems or issues. For example, when my father took me to a cheaper hotel instead of what I had in mind, I used to be sad. But then I started thinking of kids, who starve in this country and immediately my desire ceased to exist. This applies to any context be it small like buying or giving something, or something as profound as life, death and separation.
All said and done, it is easier to just point out so and so can be done, and also there is no guarantee as to whether this will work. But I have certainly tried and tested these and the key now safely resides in my palm !