Some Meanings of Happiness

When necessary, one must learn to change mind and opinion. Both our thoughts and actions can change with time. We now live in an era when having no opinion of one's own has become a kind of shame. So we often end up giving some opinion or other, understanding or not, just to keep pace with the times. Whether from situational pressure or inability to comprehend, perhaps that opinion isn't even ours, yet we voice it. We also see that what we speak about, we have blindly borrowed from someone else without understanding it ourselves. Yet due to differences in circumstances and experience, our beliefs and ways of expressing them change over time. One of the greatest limitations of modern civilization is that people are now forgetting how to express their inability to know, or even when they don't forget, they're not expressing it. Much more urgent than accepting what is correct is accepting what I can understand. This understanding changes from time to time, and this is natural. The unnatural occurs when we cannot change our old opinions and beliefs along with our evolving understanding.

Thinking too much about what will increase my honor, fame, wealth, or acceptability prevents us from doing those very things we enjoy doing. True, living with all that in mind protects us from many unwanted troubles, but often we see that in adhering to all that, people can no longer live according to their heart's desire. Without diving deep into one's own mind, people forget to know themselves. Though living properly in society's eyes without thinking about oneself is easy, if one wants to achieve something great, one must take oneself beyond social norms and reshape oneself through breaking and rebuilding. Because they cannot do this work, nine out of ten people in society don't become great; only one or two emerge from there.

Celebrating someone's achievement is much harder than criticizing it. When we criticize something badly, it hurts someone's feelings. When commenting on any matter, we need to understand it well, and we also need to clearly understand the person we're commenting about. More important than being able to think about what someone did is being able to think about when and in what circumstances they did it. If we could practice this much generosity, the world's beauty would increase further. When we have nothing good to say about someone, if we learn to remain silent, we actually help that person move forward. As human beings, this much is our duty. Under the guise of criticism, we nakedly promote ourselves. If the purpose of criticism is to diminish someone rather than point out their mistakes, then it's not called criticism but slander. There's no shortage of slanderers—they can be found on any street; what we truly lack are genuine critics.

Much more important in life than speaking is remaining silent. When the mind is disturbed, one must sit quietly at home. If that's not possible, one can take a little walk outside. Wandering without any goal in mind is also beneficial in this regard. Experience tells us that daydreaming while awake and succumbing to melancholy—wonderful creativity can emerge from both these states. Our best thoughts come to mind precisely when we're not thinking about such excellent things! Our fragmented experiences and thoughts together stir our subconscious mind, and then suddenly such arrangements of thought come to mind one after another that wouldn't normally come in ordinary circumstances! Without going through such a process, the natural flow of creation itself is lost. We fail to become creative for another reason too, and that is, we don't sleep well. When we're awake, how much we can open ourselves to others or what the rhythm of our work will be—both depend on the length and quality of our sleep. Once the body breaks down, the entire world seems meaningless and sick. Physical health is the most important thing in the world.

When someone tells me themselves who they are, it's better to believe their words. But if someone tells me who I am, it's better not to believe those words. When people speak about someone they don't really know, we must assume that assumption-based weaving of words is happening here, and the conclusion that emerges from this is much more likely to be wrong. For those who make assumptions and speak and spread false words about me, there's nothing much to do except feel compassion. Where people can't even know themselves properly, claiming to know someone else and commenting based on that—what is it but foolishness! If someone must say something, what they can say with at least some responsibility is only about themselves.

We are judged by who can earn more, who can work more, who can go farther in less time. Yet at day's end, our gains or losses are essentially determined by how much each of us can live our days or live our lives in our own way. The person who spends their entire life running after their dreams or after their own and their surroundings' happiness becomes melancholy at some point, and to them, everything they've been doing all this time seems meaningless. We're always thinking about how to live a beautiful life. Yet we don't think much about how to live a beautiful day. We simply assume we have plenty of life left! The person who runs toward the hope of a beautiful life while living each melancholy day lives blindly their entire life this way.

If we cannot properly select in haste whom or what we want to spend long periods with, life passes in receiving pain after pain. Success and relationships don't come very quickly. Even if they do come, they're lost just as quickly. There's no such thing as overnight success in the world. Behind every overnight success lie the stories of countless sleepless nights. Experience tells us that marrying in haste means spending your entire life in haste. Much better than getting something mediocre in a hurry is achieving something good by taking time. What distinguishes us individually—if it could be obtained just by reaching out, then everyone would have easily gotten it by now! Whatever anyone may say, even when an elephant lies down, a goat can never become as tall as the elephant. To rise high, one must give proper time according to proper rules. Before running, one must stumble repeatedly and strengthen oneself, otherwise while running, stumbling continuously prevents reaching the goal.

Mix only with them or think only of them who don't make you feel small when they're around you or in your mind. From whose company your confidence in your own abilities diminishes, you must keep yourself away from their companionship. Books that elevate your mind when read, movies when watched, places when visited, things when contemplated—even by force, keep yourself living through these. How we live today will determine how we live tomorrow. To increase one's own brilliance, one must stay close to brilliant people or think about the brilliant aspects of such people. You can't learn a lion's roar by mixing with donkeys. Some donkeys walk like lions, so seeing them, others think they must be improved donkeys! There's no such thing as an improved donkey, because every improved donkey is still a donkey at day's end. If you don't want to live as a donkey, you must learn to recognize donkeys.

Have you noticed that when someone sends you cat stickers or GIFs, if you're pleased by them, they send you more and more of the same to make you happy. On Facebook and YouTube, the types of posts or videos you prefer to watch increasingly appear before your eyes. To keep you satisfied, supply appears before you according to your preferences or demands. Interestingly, as supply increases, your demand also increases. Increasing to the point where others looking at you understand—yes, you are indeed that type of person. Such an idea about yourself forms in your own mind too. That is, what kind of person we grow up to be is essentially in our own hands. Our dreams sustain us to some extent, but our daily habits and tastes sustain us far more. So if we don't spend today according to how we want to see ourselves positioned, then unknowingly we'll gradually reach somewhere else entirely.

When doubt arises in your mind about what you want to achieve, what you're continuously striving to obtain, don't indulge it—rather, fight against it consciously. Disbelief is good if directed toward individuals, not toward goals. There will be many opinions for and against the work you want to do—this is natural. If you keep thinking about the negative aspects of your goal rather than keeping the positive aspects in mind, disbelief will form within you, which will greatly reduce the pace of your work. Doubt creates critics, not workers. Being a critic is easier than being a worker, because failing is easier than succeeding. Keeping doubt in mind makes doing anything creative or constructive nearly impossible. Especially asking question after question about one's dreams gradually reduces the enthusiasm for working toward dream fulfillment. Believing and keeping oneself engaged in some work requires courage and ability; disbelieving and dissuading oneself from that work requires only laziness and fault-finding.

The way we see the world around us is not the only way to see it. The way we think about life is not the only way to think about it. What exists in our beliefs and understanding is not the only truth—there are many truths beyond this, and we must be equally respectful toward them. Not everyone in the world will think like me, will not live like me.

Diversity is the most beautiful truth. Beyond what I have seen, am seeing, and will see before my eyes, much else has existed, exists, and will continue to exist in this world. The desire to drag everyone toward one’s own beliefs and paths is not wisdom—it is folly. The more we try to prove our beliefs superior, the more people will harbor disrespect and hatred toward them. Beyond what seems beautiful and inevitable to me, there is still a world, there is still a way of living. Let us remember that any belief which does not teach tolerance is nothing but ignorance or stupidity. However much we have seen, known, and understood, there is far more beauty scattered throughout this world.

There are many ways to remain alive. The simplest, perhaps, is to live by forgiving. One must learn to forgive for the sake of one’s own mental peace. Life is much like a lifeboat. But sometimes it becomes a submarine. It plunges deep into the unfathomable and incomprehensible places, confronting us with truths so overwhelming that we become paralyzed with fear not merely at facing them, but even at the thought of them. Whenever all our shame, failure, mistakes, and weaknesses come before our eyes, we must forgive ourselves for all our guilt. We must do the same for others’ lives. Those whom we cannot forgive—their faults and flaws exist as much within them as they do within our own minds. Whatever darkness we see in them ultimately casts us into darkness, leaving our minds anxious and melancholy. As we delve deeper into our thoughts about them, we grow increasingly despondent. In this dwelling on sorrow, no one suffers but ourselves. For those who know how to forgive, this submarine slowly rises to the water’s surface, sunlight falls upon it, and the submarine of darkness gradually becomes a lifeboat of light that saves us from the wastage of life.

When sorrow engulfs us, we must feel it mindfully. Avoiding sorrow is difficult—most people, in trying to avoid it, only amplify it. Better to accept sorrow. When the mind is completely submerged in sorrow and becomes accustomed to living with it, sorrow’s face becomes familiar. At that point, emerging from sorrow becomes easier. This requires conscious effort. In this process, we must forcibly draw various elements of happiness into our lives, even if reluctantly. Whatever makes people happy must be given place in life, rising above all logic and argument. To dispel despair and hopelessness, we must make ourselves happy at any cost. Whatever makes us feel good—however wrong or pointless it may appear to others—we must continue doing. This may not reduce the sources of sorrow or mental conflicts, but the mind learns to accept them easily. This learning is crucial.

We must measure the blue of our own sky ourselves—if we let others measure it, the blue turns dark. There’s no point telling rain stories to the old man who sits comfortably in the sun. There’s no point making the little girl who can find all seven colors of the rainbow in her bangles wait for rain. There’s no point tempting the snail who finds comfort on the rough back of a broken wall with the allure of walking on damp walls on rainy days. There’s no point leading someone enchanted by the chiming anklets of dry leaves down the path of understanding rain’s chemistry with leaf fragrances. This doesn’t diminish the beauty of rain, but when we try to force someone to appreciate any beauty, that beauty loses all appeal in their eyes. Rain is beautiful, yet not everyone has the time, opportunity, or desire to wait for that beauty. Happiness doesn’t mean dispelling darkness to live in light, but rather living in light even within darkness.