What does it mean to experience true joy? Happiness can mean different things to different people. For example, wealth or power may mean the world to a person, whereas for someone else it may mean just being able to live a normal, healthy life.
Many people think that happy people are either wealthy or own branded stuff and that having them brings happiness. Thus, they squander their youth, desperately trying to achieve this perception of happiness. In truth, these qualities are not responsible for a person's happiness or unhappiness. Happiness is not derived from material goods or money. As once aptly put by Philosopher Spike Milligan, "Money can't buy you happiness".
Some people think that true happiness does not lie in material objects, rather, from one's imagination. They give examples like: A man has a Toyota car. His neighbor living on the right owns a Mercedes while the one on the left a rickshaw. When he looks right, he feels unsatisfied and but when he turns to his left he feels happy. As such happiness does not lie in one's possessions, but in imagination. Thus, people are always advised to compare themselves with those who have far fewer belongings, like the poor in Africa or Cambodia.
However, I beg to differ from this way of thinking. It is absurd that true happiness should lie in feeling superior to the poor. Not only is it unkind to derive happiness from the under-privileged, this definition of happiness implies that being "better" than others is happiness. I ask you, how can true happiness be attained from looking down on someone? It would be extremely condescending, showing that you do not genuinely pity them ,but rather, relieved at not being as poor as them. We must adopt the correct attitude when striving for happiness and not just think of ourselves. As Philosopher Judi Singleton once commented, "Happiness is when your mind is thinking through your heart".
Instead, I feel that happiness depends wholly on a person's attitude towards life. For example, if you are satisfied with just leading an average, healthy life with your family, you will be able to attain happiness easily, compared to those who hunger for status and riches. To me, happiness is to be able to be satisfied with whatever you. If you are content with life, you will have achieved what you want and hence, happy. On the other hand, if you forever hanker after worldly possessions, you will continue to want more, more and yet more, never being able to truly know what it is like to be happy. "To be truly happy and contented, you must let go of what it means to be happy or content"---Confucius.
"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder". Indeed, true happiness is also similarly, simple contention. If a person is only contented with $100000000, then he would be happy if he gets that sum of money. But if another person is only contented with $1, he would happy if has $1. Once we are contented, we would be happy with what we have, so attitude is really the key to happiness.
ReplyDeleteAs a christian myself, I believe the true happiness in this world is to trust in the lord and accept everlasting happiness. Everything in this world is temporary, and gives you only temporary happiness.