Happiness

I am a subscriber of positivity pages on social media. Most of them tell me to find happiness within. Honestly, this concept never made sense to me. How can I find happiness within me when everyone around me was pouring sadness over me, making me sad in the process? Everyone has problems and thats what they want to talk about first. As a listener you can be easily swayed into that direction. So what is finding happiness? And how do you do it?

I just exited my forty first year of life. Maybe half-way or more than half-way through and finally I learnt what this means. It is not happiness that one should seek, but stability or equilibrium with yourself and your thoughts. Happiness simply follows. The first step is to know yourself and draw a boundary around yourself. You will not sway outside this boundary, give yourself enough room to feel your emotions, but don’t let anyone else’s emotion cross the boundary and mingle with yours. It took me a long time to know myself. I am still not there, but I know I am on my way. This path of self-identification is helping me understand who I really am.

When you don’t know yourself, you build these walls of sand around you thinking they are your boundary, but the slightest wind will crumble them. You can never be happy within these fake walls. Its days and days of pretense which you want to believe is the real thing. You cannot wake up one day and say, yes, I have no more fake walls. It takes time effort and people around you to help you get there.

Finally when you find happiness within, nobody can touch it and change its baseline. It is a state of enlightenment, maybe the first step to enlightenment. It’s been a year since I wrote the first part of this blog. At 42 I feel I have come closer to myself and found happiness sitting there warm and cozy. It’s not an easy find, it’s not an easy journey to yourself. Once found, your thoughts are elevated. Do I really need to say something here? Maybe not. Does this really impact me? Maybe not. Does anyone need my opinion? Probably not. Before saying anything you put your happiness first subconsciously and determine the course of action that doesn’t meddle with your inner equilibrium.

You finally know what you want actually let me take that back, you finally know what you don’t want. You can clearly delineate between the negative energies in your life and can manage them. You finally see that door you’ve been looking for and it’s within reach. You can run. You can be free. You can be happy.

Spark Joy

If you have heard of Marie Kondo, you know what ‘spark joy’ means. She asks people to look at every object and ask the question ‘does it spark joy’ before deciding to trash it or keep it. I had never heard of Marie Kondo or her Konmari methodology. I am faaaaar from the most organized person you will find. My place is not a mess, you don’t have to tiptoe your way into the house, decently organized, but not Marie-Kondo-Organized. My sister-in-law is big about keeping things organized. It shows in her house as well, everything neat and put away and perfect. It is a joy visiting her house, I am just not made out of that cut. Anyways, she asked me to pick up Marie Kondo’s book from the library and that is the first time I ever heard about this organizing diva. No, I am not a follower, I don’t think I ever will be.

My designer friend on the other hand had another opinion. All said and done, out of curiosity, I decided to watch the Marie Kondo series on Netflix. I watched one episode (well, three fourth) on Netflix and learnt her mantra of ‘spark joy’. I liked her concept and subconsciously if an object does not spark joy in us, some of us throw it away, donate it or keep it in the corner of the garage. The ‘organizers’ promptly get rid of it. When I pick a dress to wear, if I think I will look good in it, then it sparks joy in me and I wear it, if not, it stay on the hanger for months!

Thinking deeper, doesn’t this concept apply to people. Except that the question is a little different. Do you spark joy in others? When you meet someone, it could be your children you see everyday, or your colleague at work, are they happy to see you? Isn’t that what matters? If my presence does not make the other person happy or as Marie Kondo says ‘spark joy’ then that relationship is stale. Whether you throw it away, keep it there depends on your circumstance and a lot of other things. But this concept is so easy to apply to identify positive and negative energies in your life. I read somewhere that it is important to identify the positive and negative energies in your life, it helps build self-confidence.

I would not focus on thinking about does the other person spark joy in you, because relationships always begin with you. If you are good, its good enough. When I go to work, almost all my colleagues greet me with a smile. I know the genuine ones and fake ones. To the fake ones, I know I am not sparking joy. But the genuine ones harness a positive realm around you, making you want to go to work. My kiddos, when I walk into the house after any kind of day, they come and hug me. Thats a definite sign of me sparking joy in them, like they do in me. Applicable to all mommy-baby relationships, it’s all positive there. It’s all in the moment, why wouldn’t you want to make it joyous?

Recently I was on the same median turning left into Barton Springs Rd. A homeless man stood on the median. He knocked on my window. I looked at him with conflicting thoughts of, I don’t have money to give you, I wish I could buy you food, how can I help him etc. When I looked at him, he used his hand to gesture to me and mouthed the word ‘smile’. I instantly smiled. He said, ‘thank you, that’s all I need’. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was stressed that morning, so a stranger on the street asking me to smile, was a reminder to smile and stay positive. I felt worse that I could not help him. But, who sparked joy in whom?…

Next time you meet anyone, just give it a thought, are you sparking joy in that person? If you are, good. If you are not, do you want to? If you want to, how will you do it? The sum total of these sparks is this amazing journey we are on.

To positive vibes! To sparking joys! To Marie Kondo!