The life that we are living today is very materialistic and totally inane. We human beings are badly influenced by the charisma of this materialistic world in such a way that we are disregarding the real meaning of life and the true bottom line of felicity and contentedness. We are running after materialistic and temporary possessions, money, fame, wealth, power, etc. I don’t disclaim their importance, I do acknowledge their significance for a comfortable and quality of life. Actually these elements are tools for happiness but not happiness itself.

People had a hope that having money, fame, and power will bring success and jubilation in their lives but recently the suicide of famous Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput ended that hope. Despite having all these luxurious things to live a happy life he was still not satisfied and depressed. In one of his interviews, he tried to define real happiness according to his life experience. He said that whenever we dream and then achieve it, we get bored after a few days. We are never satisfied as we always expect to be. Having a dream to get something in the future is important but we need to come back to the present moment and live it fully.

For a brief moment if we have look at our own lives we would realize that we are immersed in our worldly activities to such extent that we have forgotten our beloved ones. Parents have no time for their children and vice versa. A man who has a fancy house, a beautiful wife and cute children, wakes up early in the morning while they are still asleep, goes to his office, and spends his entire day in the office dealing with professional matters and comes back home just for dinner. This man is so deeply immersed in his business that he is quite unaware of his family. The reason behind this ignorance is that the life of a modern man is filled with competition. Everyone is terribly involved in their own business. Everyone is struggling hard for the best. Children are doing their best for obtaining the best grades and best jobs while parents are busy with their activities. This type of competition has created a gap between people and has caused anxiety, fear, and many other mental disturbances in life. People call it the struggle for life, but this is not really a struggle for life, it’s actually a struggle for success while the struggle for life is something quite different. What people fear in the struggle is not that they will fail to get their breakfast the next morning but they will fail to outshine their fellow beings.

The question here is how we can add real happiness and satisfaction in life?

Happiness and contentedness depend partly upon external circumstances and partly upon ourselves. They rely largely upon one’s own attitude, effort, and proper adjustment. Our thoughts are the basic elements to bring off felicity and satisfaction in life. It is your mind that is the storehouse of thoughts and ideas that accredit you and your personality that is why never mess your mind with negative and cynical thoughts. Never circumscribe your mind. Our culture; religion and social system limit our minds in such a way that it becomes very abstruse to observe the world beyond these boundaries. We don’t have any idea how small our place in the universe really is. Earth is just a pale blue dot if we look at it from a far distance. To get a fraction of this dot, humans kill each other and feel pride which has no meaning if you compare it with the size of the whole universe. The only solution to this problem is knowledge and learning. Gain the knowledge and learn things to understand the codes of the universe and accept diversity in this world, to eliminate hatred, malice, and violation.

Life is really a beautiful and great responsibility that needs hard work and an optimistic outlook. The optimistic attitude automatically brings off happiness according to the law of attraction. A happy person is the one who lives objectively and has wide interest and affection, in return, he secures affection and respect from others because he gives it to others. He relishes every moment with full piquancy as if it is the last moment of his life.

One thing that I consider most significant is that be the real and honest version of yourself. It is easy to delude others but you can never delude yourself. It is only you who knows you the best, you know your weaknesses, flaws, imperfections, apprehensions, and vigor. It is only you who can meliorate your personality. The thing that creates unhappiness is your own attitude, never be a misanthropic person, be honest with yourself and with your dear ones, and do spend quality time with them try to understand their situation rather than criticizing them. Read good books and stay in the company of people who always brings out the best in you, not the ones who censure your efforts and makes fun of you. Learn to love and respect your fellow beings, have the courage and be kind because only respect, kindness, and love are the things that bring tranquility and harmony in this world and in your life.

Nida Bawar

BS Economics

QAU, Islamabad