It is really common to hear that people are depressed or frustrated. Ask them why? and they would not know. This post is neither an answer to the problems nor a spiritual path to happiness, it is nothing more than an introspection:
We are often, consciously or unconsciously, governed by what the world thinks, what people have to say. Invariably we are brought up being told that we should study because our neighbour's son/daughter studies or studied and did well in life. Our sense of morality, success and failure are bent to understand that the opinions of everyone else are superior to ours, and they are the conclusive test of what we are in life.
Slowly, our own sense of thought, logic, morality, happiness, start to become what is thrust upon us by a collective whose identity is impossible to establish. Curiously enough, this collective comprises individuals whose idea of morality etc. is totally different from the community standards they project. My point, in summary, being that we live our lives the way 'they' want us to live it.
Day in and day out, our choices are determined by what people will say or what they will do. My question is: your life, your decisions, you face the consequences of your decisions, then why care about the people? The thing about people is that will always talk and they have a really short memory. They want to talk because they have nothing better to do. If you sit and do nothing, you are useless, if you go ahead and do something, they are just jealous. If dogs don't bark, what else will they do?
We live so much of our lives being what people want us to be that we forget who we really are and when we do things for other people we are bound to be frustrated. We can only excel or enjoy things when we do what we want to do. Our lives have gradually turned into an hypocrite pledge to satisfy others and the biggest problem is that you can never truly satisfy the people or the community standard, simply because there is none! Only when we define our life by what we want, there can be satisfaction, only then can we truly relate to that elated feeling called happiness.
"Ninty per cent of our lives are lived for other people and then we wonder why we aren't happy. The ten per cent is who we are, what defines us, what makes us happy."
You get to live once, live life KING size!
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truly said ajar...but how can we decide what is just for us or what not. it is a standard which is set by others, only through that we can define just and wrong. which is right and gives happiness to u, doesnt mean that its always right and just. so sometime we have to work according to others. but on the whole i am agree with your words and most of time i also follow this.
ReplyDeleteThere should always be room for what people have to say. Criticisms keeps us on the ground:) My point is not to say that we should think we are the law. What I wish to convey is that we spend so much of our lives just trying to get in the good books of others, that we forget what we want from life, and that is where frustration begins:)
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ReplyDeleteWho am I? And what do I want? These are questions which can never be answered in abstract and absolute. Who you are and what you want, in one way or the other will always be influenced by the people around you. The choice to make is who you want these people to be: family, a set of friends or any other person around.
ReplyDeletewell written ajar..!!..n very true.... a few days back when ronik was in mussoorie, we were discussing bout this only..do what u njoe n njoe what u do..!!
ReplyDeleteIt is a choice as to what makes us happy....living for ourselves or living for others...in the case of the choice being latter...i would only define it as a 'different' way of living for ourselves :)
ReplyDeletethe choices can n will change from time to time...but the choice ALWAYS is with US in ourselves...
Im also being inspired lately of what Steve Jobs says:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Reiterating...as long as the CHOICE is with us...we are living for ourselves :)