Happiness, Goals and Related Things

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” – Albert Einstein

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Scientifically, it's a variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Spiritually speaking, as Sir.William Law once said, 'He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life'. I would say, here the Universal law of nature would apply; Perspective & Culture – its all individualistic in nature. Similarly, the state of happiness will also be intrepreted according to different contexts.

In the normal walk of life, we tend to look to people or material things to value success or measure happiness. Success may be associated to a level of social status, achievement of a goal or the opposite of failure. We forget; it should always be looked within ourself. Comparison must be made, but with our past experience, past performance or with the aim/goal we had set for ourself combined with the goal our superior or next in authority might have put across. All with care and proper self-respect. Self analysis and self - motivation is the best of all Reviews, which can lead you to self growth and development. This process sometimes may make you feel proud. Make you feel who you are, where you stand, where you can go, what you can really achieve. And yes, how smart you are!

But, I woould support to Sir.Carl Jung, 'Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity'. This thought can be kept in our mind in occasions when we find ourselves running below our performance, distance between our current status and our goal widens. Little by little we can focuz more and journey our way towards our goal.

In the course of our 'persuit of goal', sometimes unknowingly our focuz of goal will slightly shift to people around us, things that are connected to the goal or related to us. Unless we take control of those situations, we may get away from our persuit of that real happiness, the persuit of that goal. We may choose to keep specific intervals to review our goal and update our whole path. Another matter to be always kept in our minds is rhat difficulties keep increasing the nearer our path is towards the goal. This can be better understood if we turn back and think upon our lives-situations when we had thought to turn back from where we were heading to, maybe we withdrew. Alas, then we realize how close we were in reaching our destination, we should have followed, we should have kept trying. Right?. Yep.

In all our persuits for happiness, we need to focuz on our goal. Forget what others are saying. Forget what history has taught us. Forget what your past experience were (but taking lessons from all). Your door to happiness is open, but we need to pass through it.

Much of our individual self-esteem is really drawn from our perception, of how other people look upon us on our behaviour and the work we do. We tend to go after ur friends or counsellors opinion in checking whether you are going in right direction, your performance is well, are you been valued, etc. We are always doubtful on where we stand. Are we really happy? Were our decisions correct? This is wrong! You need to focuz on yourself. You need to understand yourself and your goals. Then act. With all faith, you may continue your persuit.

In the words of Dr. Timothy Sharp (Chief Happiness Officer);

If you're really happy you'll also know because...

• you'll have a clear sense of who you are, what you want to achieve and how you're going to achieve it

• you'll have energy and zest, enthusiasm and hope for life

• the future will look bright and you'll be grateful for the present

• you'll spend more of your time focusing on and utilising what you're best at (rather than dwelling on what you're not so good at)

• you'll enjoy spending time with others as they enjoy spending time with you

In short, we need to become strong in spirits. Means mentally. We need to direct ourselves in all our persuits, you can accept advices from your loved ones, but we need to make sure we are not following their persuits. We must keep reminding us, where we need to go, where our happiness lies. Happy Happiness :)