No worries, be happy

Optimism is being hopeful and exultant. It is something that comes from within and generally because of positive thinking. It is true that our lives are deeply affected by all that we think and believe. For example, if we get up in the morning believing this is going to be a good day, then we’ll surely have a nice day. We often encounter some “morning people” who have a cheery attitude towards life. Their lives aren’t exactly a bed of roses. They also come across unhappy situations and suffer like everyone else, but they don’t make themselves miserable by constantly thinking about them. Letting our moods become influenced by external influences show weakness in our persona. Our emotions and moods, at the very least, should be in our control and we must free them from being affected by external influences if we want to lead a blissful life. However, that doesn’t mean that we become so full of ourselves that we start getting on others’ nerves. Human beings are basically social beings and interacting with each other brings happiness. Here’s a test, go through some of your old school pictures of a picnic trip. You’ll be surprised to see that even the most pessimistic and the ‘Moaning Myrtle’ kind of friends will be seen enjoying and laughing like everyone else in the photo. It is a strange fact that the things for which most of the people strive hard, like happiness, freedom and serenity, are attained by giving them to other people. Sometimes, living for others also makes a person truly happy. To be alive one has to feel things; whether it is happiness or sorrow. It is not possible to have a perfectly content life, totally devoid of sufferings. To appreciate happiness one must have a taste of sorrow and that is why happiness and sorrows balance each other out in life. Just like that a bright day can’t be appreciated without a dark night, similarly love and pain are inseparable from each other. This is exactly the point where optimism comes in, when things are not going well and you feel like life is pushing you down, start looking at the brighter side of things. Joy comes from doing things you love. If you start a day with a desire to accomplish some goals and by the end of the day you haven’t reached your target, look at what you have done. Don’t feel frustrated at the little things you haven’t been able to do. Begin the next day in high spirits with no thoughts of previous failures. This is a human perspective of ‘Hakuna matata’, which means ‘No worries’. Of course, life is not a movie but we can take a leaf out of the storybook and — like Timon, the meerkat, and Pumbaa, the warthog — lead a happy life.