Gatekeeping Happiness
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Once, I heard of a very sad story of a genuine man who provided accommodation in his house to a young man, so that he could prosper in life. However, this young man began an illicit relationship with the house owner’s wife, who later eloped with the young man. She left a genuine and helpful man and their children in a pool of tears. If you are leaving your gates open, be mindful as there is a very high possibility that a stray dog may freely walk in and poop on your beautiful garden.
Furthermore, if you attempt to keep fruits on your wall to feed the monkeys, even though you may do it out of compassion for animals the moment you leave your gate and doors open, they will creep into the house and steal whatever they could. Acquiring happiness is a choice, you always have the choice to either protect it or let someone steal it. Your happiness can be stolen very easily if you keep the gates of your heart and mind open. Even your face cream may get contaminated if it has any contaminated elements in it, even though you use your own fingertips to use it. Therefore, we must be very careful in safeguarding our happiness.
Preservation – Preserving happiness is the key element that we must focus on, unless people with small minds could come and steal it away easily. The authenticity of any meal will be gone consequently if it is not preserved effectively. Even Ambul Thiyal (a Sri Lankan traditional food) is preserved appropriately using the right mix of natural ingredients making sure the authenticity of it is maintained. The decisions we make in life can make us happy or miserable. We had a maid in our house whom we treated very well that we even arranged a comfortable room for her inside the house with an attached bathroom the same as what we use. Yet, I realised that she was exploiting my wife’s innocence and taking advantage of it. One day as I went into the house I saw my wife cleaning the pots and pans whilst our maid was taking a beauty sleep after her lunch. I woke her up immediately and asked her to pack her bags right away and leave. You and I are highly responsible for making the lives of our loved ones happy, and it is our duty to safeguard their happiness.
Selection – Selecting quality ingredients will certainly have an impact on the outcome of the butter cake that you are baking. Using high quality butter and cheap margarine will give you a completely different taste, therefore your input determines your output. Likewise, what you permit to reside within your heart and mind will decide the level of happiness you will be able to attain. As a stringent policy, I do not watch Sri Lankan political discussions, they are prone to make people furious to watch the manipulation, untruthfulness and foolishness. The best thing to do is to cease them from entering through your gates.
We also do not watch mega dramas, as it is only a heap of garbage. Many Sri Lankans have become trash bins of the deceitful media channels who have well and truly understood the wavering mindset and the vulnerability of their fellow countrymen. You must be extremely vigilant on the things that you expose your five senses to, especially your eyes and ears as they could easily steal your happiness from you. Even though we are a patriotic family, we have banned watching local TV channels in our house. Just because you are patriotic it does not mean that you should let others feed you garbage.
If you constantly consume junk food, one day down the line it is certain to steal your happiness from you by gifting you a lifestyle disease. Many who have diabetics and heart ailments are those who have followed a weak practice in terms of their lifestyle selections. As a nation we are in great need of a drastic system change on our definition of happiness. Just as preservation is crucial, selection plays a pivotal role in safeguarding happiness.
Choose to be Happy - Unless you choose to be happy, you will never be happy even though you may acquire everything in this world. Some people choose to be miserable from the very moment they wake up in the morning. You will be clean only if you choose to bathe, if not you will stink. Being happy is a choice. Even when my earning was as little as 2% of what I am earning now, we used to dance at home and live a happy life. Happiness is not based on what you have but on how you choose to be with what you have. You can either accept joy bringers into your life or you could reject the joy killers from entering you. When a tuk tuk driver yells at you in filth you could either choose to ignore him with a smile or you can choose to yell back at him in order to feed your pride.
Releasing Happiness - It is another stream of protecting your happiness. There is a famous quote that states “You can’t keep it unless you give it away”. Happiness is a flowing cycle, the more you release it the more it produces. In my life I have witnessed many miserable people, almost all of them are those who do not transfer happiness to others. All successful mentors share their knowledge with the next generation as they believe, the more they share the more they retain. Therefore, be determined to make at least five people happy a day, so that you would have no time to invest in worrying. Be busy and release happiness as much as you can so that more happiness will be produced within you.
My beautiful wife is always so busy helping those who are in need and she takes great pleasure in what she does. I have been a vicious personality some time back that I used to release heart piercing statements to others. After releasing such venomous words, I lived in condemnation for hours and hours until I was pardoned by those people. But later I realised that my action is not different from washing your dirty clothes and putting it back in the mud. Now, I release words of happiness to others and I have realised how effective it is to safeguard my happiness.
Acknowledge the Reality – It is a key strategy to protect your happiness. Many live thinking that life should be filled only with laughter and dancing. It is as though you live with the expectation that only day time will exist and night will not. Just as rain is important, so is the dry weather important for the sustainability of our earth. One compliments the other as each one has two different roles to play. You cannot win a match by having only a team of eleven batsmen. The reality is that there will be separations, rejections, hurt, misunderstandings, mischaracterizing and many others that will bring tears into your life. Fire in life catapults us to the next level. Hence, we should accept fire with a positive mindset. We must be wise in acknowledging the fiery part of life as it is part and parcel of the package. If you have not encountered sorrow, then you would not know what happiness is. People have the ability to define bitter food because they have tasted sweets. If you have not seen black how would you identify white? Happiness and sadness are part of our life for sustainability and growth. Do not stop your children when they cry, it is good to shed a few tear drops, as it prepares you to a ground that produces laughter.
Today, I am extremely concerned about safeguarding my happiness, thus I select my friends, associates and programmes wisely, as I am aware of what happened to me in the past as a result of my poor selection, inability to preserve happiness, blindness in acknowledging the reality and my decisions to remain in misery just so I could enjoy the temporary pleasures.
For comments: e-mail – Philipnehri@chandanalepa.lk / voice – 0779 526 496
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