It All Makes Sense Now

Things make sense to me now. I always wondered why people would be sitting on a bench in the park and be randomly smiling. I always wondered why a person walking on the street would suddenly look up at me and give me the biggest and widest smile. There were so many questions in my mind. There were things that remained unanswered; things that never used to make sense until now.

Those people that sit at benches in the parks, those people that walk on the street and smile at you, those people that you wave at and they wave back with a smile, plus other people that you encounter at different places that always seem to be so cheerful and always seem to be smiling, all have something in common and the thing they all have in common is the reason why they are all smiling. I finally understood that they were all content with their lives and with what they have and are blessed with.

I also understood that there is a difference between being happy and being content. Being happy in my eyes, is a short term thing. You are happy and then you can be sad. Happiness is a very tentative thing, which comes and goes. It can be transformed in to something long term, if you are 'content'. Now this thought process and chain of thoughts can go two ways. The logical way and the religious way. I will start with the religious one first.

If you are a believer of God, you should be content with whatever you have in your life and are blessed with. You should be thankful for whatever that you have, because always remember, there are other people who have less or even far lesser than what you have. We are always taught in our religious doctrines, to be appreciative, content and be thankful. It makes a person humble and modest and that is what is loved by God. God loves a person who always thanks Him for the blessings that He blesses him/her with. God looks after people that always remember and have God in their thoughts. In the eyes of God, we should always be content with what we have and pray for better things to come in the future. If we don't, if we are unhappy with what we have and are not thankful, then god takes those privileges away from us.

If you keep religion out of this, generally speaking it is always good to be appreciative and thankful for whatever we have and be content with whatever we have. Forget God for a second, just look around the world and the news headlines. We live a very privileged life and there are people that live on barely one dollar a day. Some people that live in other third world countries, do not make as much as we do, or have that many opportunities like us, but they are content with their lives and they make the best out of what they have. They do not sulk and in the process of searching for gold, miss out on the silver lining. The point being, take whatever is being offered to you on the plate and run after something which isn't on the menu, later. This way you will still get to eat what's on the plate and have what isn't on the menu too, just not all at once.

If you are happy, there will be a smile but it won't last long and there will be a dreary characteristic about your persona. If you aren't content, you aren't happy. You will 'always' find ways to be sad. You will always find reasons to be depressed or feel down. Not saying that even if you are content with everything that you are blessed with and have in your life, you won't have moments of sadness, you will have them but they will be far lesser and those negative thoughts will occupy far less space and time in your mind.

A strong complacent individual will remain steadfast throughout the toughest times and come out as the winner. A contented person would be an optimistic and always appreciate life and always think of the glass being half full, instead of half empty and try to make the glass full. Technically speaking the glass is always full, even if it is half full or empty, because of the air in the glass. Got you there? This was an interesting thought that had come to my mind recently. If a glass is to be full, it doesn't necessarily have to be filled to the brim with water, now is it?

Also a person who is easily gratified and finds happiness in small things, instead of waiting out for something big every time to happen and lift his/her spirits, does not fall prey to complexes that the mind can develop and those complexes result in very disastrous effects. If a person is happy and content, the person would not fall in to the trap of the inferiority complex.

People have a habit of comparing themselves to others and this is where being satisfied is essential. If a person constantly compares themselves to others and tries to compete with them, there is a big chance that the person might fail in that endeavour. There are multitudes of factors which make other people different than us. Maybe for whatever reason, we cannot compete with them. This is why, we shouldn’t.

The main thing and goal of our life should be, to take each person that comes in to our lives as they are and still be our one true self. Still be happy with what we are and who we are. Still be happy with the things we have and the people we are blessed with. Not be unhappy by looking at other people and keep thinking that ‘I wish I had that, or I wish I was like that.’ What this does is, it lowers our self esteem and makes us think negative thoughts. That drives us to feel an all time low and we lose our will to achieve. We want shortcuts in life and quickly want to be what the other person is, or get what others have.

Nothing in life is easy come. If it is easy come, then it easy goes too. We have to work hard to achieve something, but the formula for doing that is to be happy and content. Go to work with a smile on your face and give it all you got. Be proud of who you are, while you go out with friends and do not feel inferior or a lesser being in anyway at all. Be confident. When you are happy with who you are i.e. you are content, you are confident and that is a big morale booster. When you are confident, you can achieve great heights. It is all about positivity.

On the other side, too much of confidence and contentment, can lead to a sense of superiority and that is where the superiority complex comes in. The mind is a fragile thing. If it is burdened by too much of good or bad thoughts, it will break and we will start experiencing consequences of that happening. While the inferiority complex has its effects, the superiority complex makes us feel that we are better than everyone and that we have the best things and people in our lives. This rises to conflicts with other people. Too much confidence can give issues of ego. People who suffer from superiority complex in essence can’t handle ‘bad news’, because they believe bad news isn’t possible. They are above everything bad and they start to live in their own fantasy land.

What we need is a balance. We need to be happy and content, but at the same time we should have the capacity to have sad thoughts enter our mind from time to time and be able to handle any kind of situation that we encounter. We should be content with who we are, so we can go out in to the world with confidence and stay away from depression and negative thoughts. At the same time, we should be sensitive to different emotions that a human being experiences and be ready to tackle that. Be sad at the bad times, but always have the strength to stay away from long term sadness or short term happiness, whichever way you want to put it, by being happy from the inside. Make your heart happy and be content. Always be thankful.

Comments

  1. Such a beautiful thought, this is...! I have been thinking about the same recently...
    I believe that contentment is when your heart is satisfied...and thankful. It's like, your heart is smiling...and that in turn gives way to happiness that is not temporary, rather a long term thing.
    I have seen people who have literally nothing and yet, they are 'content'. They are thankful for whatever they have. I have also seen people who have everything, and yet they have nothing, because they are not content. They keep on having the feeling as if something is not right, something is missing...
    Well done again :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Last three closing paragraphs are thoughtfully composed with helpful Advice, has something to ponder about!
    Wassalam!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice thoughts ... well written ... loved it :)

    ReplyDelete

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