"How can I be happy?"
If you google this up, I have the biggest secret to happiness. This post will (hopefully) stop your spree for books on happiness.
The secret to happiness is:
Just be happy! (of course there's more, so read on)
Happiness is a feeling that comes from within. It is a mindset - you can be happy, if you choose to be. You don't have to grumble and look at the negative side of life. This is an abstract skill, and let me share with you a more definite key to happiness.
Gratitude.
Has it crossed your mind that since you read the first sentence of this post till here, about 2 children in the world have died of water poisoning? I lived in a place where water is usually unsafe to drink. The poor people were happy that they had gas to boil their water (in a large, black, dirty aluminium pot). The poor people were happy that they had a river in their village and the village further needed to walk 1km to the water source. They are happy drinking the bath water of others. Buffaloes often wash themselves and poop in the river. They call that river their blessing.
Has it crossed your mind that you actually have electricity to read this off a gadget, be it computer or your phone? I used to live in this place where it was totally dark after 6pm, and starlight guided their movements outside the house. They set up candles in the house, and work around that sooty, smelly light it gives. But at least that house had candles. Two houses away, they rather save the money for food than to splurge on candles. I had a battery-operated torch. Taddah! They haven't even seen that before. Of course, I had a mobile phone in my pocket which I shouldn't be flashing.
That is why they are happy. Of course, they could do with more money, but they could have lived without anything. They had something. That something made them happy.
If you're suffering from chronic pessimism, or depression, or melancholy, there's still one way to cure that. Go to where I have been, and live with them. They won't charge you a single cent for staying with them in their homes. It's free of charge. You'll be sleeping on a piece of cloth laid over the floor. You'll eat rice with (the same) pickles 3 times a day. And they make their own pickles using leaves (they call that vegetable, but it's nowhere near anything I've seen in my life). They add pieces of lemon (and you will eat the lemon rinds). Wash your hand in unsafe water, eat with your hand, and wash your hand. Oops. There isn't any soap.
Yet they smile all the time. All the time. If you're ever down and unhappy, think about "what could have been". Life really could have been worse, so much worse. If that has never crossed your mind, well, your life is very sheltered, and blessed.
