Seek and ye shall not find

I took the title for today's blog post from ST's "Mind You Body" section.

It says about the viewpoints of happiness differing with different philosophers, but there was one thing in common with all: You can only find happiness by seeking something else and not happiness alone.

Interesting, and I have to agree that it is true. If you try hard to be happy just by trying to feel happy, that usually does not work. Before reading this article, I have read so many other articles dishing out an advice to keep an optimistic spirit about things, but I was all along wondering, where does the optimistic spirit come from? It cannot just pop out of nowhere you know.

I am enlightened by this fact. Maybe I was trying way too hard last year to be happy, and while I was going for counselling sessions, I have been thinking, since life is pretty uncertain, and since everyone will still go through the ageing process and die one day, why should we have to live still? While I was fearing for my happiness, I was also fearing about life.

The bout of depression was cleared this year. I realised that life has it merits and it differs with people. I just wasn't really aware of it.

Been thinking a little bit, and here are some of the greatest things contributing to happiness in life:

Growth, Learning, Achievement, Passion, Dedication: "A person is without a soul if there is no fire in the heart." Some chinese saying but I don't really know where the actual source is from. Contributes to our self-esteem. To be able to grow and become a better person while we are here is important to our self-esteem and happiness. Otherwise, when we just lay on our deathbeds, we will be regretting our life away, and that is not a situation I want to be in.

Love and understanding: (Good) Love is happiness, provided it is not misguided or blind love. I equal love with understanding. For one, you can only love yourself better by being your best friend and understanding yourself well enough to give yourself what you need, otherwise you might get miserable. You can only feel loved by others if the people around you understand you. You can only love the world if you can understand it to a good extent.

Inner peace and contentment: To be happy for what you are, and what you have. This doesn't exactly mean that we have to be complacent - it only means that we should have a good dose of happiness from being contented on the whole. If pursuing something can make you even more contented, and it is within your means, why not?

People, and being a part of the moment: So much of our lives has to do with other people no matter whether you are introverted or extroverted by nature. Be it an MMORPG or real life, the basic block actually comes from the existence of people. These inspirational sources can either make or break a person. I choose to believe that most people are good by nature, and in the "grey" or "black" personalities, evil is simply a manifest of fear, indirectly or not, unless you are clearly demented from the start.

Equality and basic respect: No matter what the skin colour, background or the culture is, every human is the same inside. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Memories and experience: Most of the other greatest things are linked to these powerful sources for our emotions and what makes us the way we are. The reason why life is a journey that has to be taken, these have to be acquired on the way to make us a better person overall.

That's about it for today. Till the next entry.