5 simple steps: Happiness guaranteed

Here is an excerpt of this column which was published on 30/10/2011 in HT City’s A Calmer You column(FSGJZAD77FKW) ;

This world has two kinds of people. Those who keep waiting for the right time to be happy, and those who… Chalo ji, tension over. I thought with life being so unpredictable, who knows till when will I get an opportunity to give you gyaan about calm-sutra. Let us, in one stroke, figure out the magic formula for happiness. I can see that some of you have already put the cynics’ cap on, and are rolling your eyes on this 243567th attempt by a self-help writer to tell you how to be happy. I wish I could humour your cynicism further by saying things like, ‘no one, but I, can teach you how to be happy’, but all that is bullshit and you know it. Nothing I ever say in this column is something you don’t already know. But you still read it, right? Please allow me to share the steps I recently followed to drag myself out of a phase where I was feeling a bit low and out of sync.

Read the Full Column

If you are really looking forward to be really happy always, then straightaway jump to the last tip which Sonal Kalra has mentioned in this column which is – Infect others. If you could make others happy then there is nothing that can stop you from being real happy. This goes a long way in keeping your happiness alive always unlike Sonal’s other tips which are more of a temporary arrangement to come out of stress and making yourself happy. After, killing the ‘when’ word and trying out new and crazy things is something you will not be able to do always. After a while, you will not be able to kill the ‘when’ word because life is not that ideal as we hope and try to make it to be. Similarly, the real fun will fade away after you have tried a couple of new and so called crazy things. This is human nature, to start feeling monotonous and bored of something you have been doing repeatedly.

If you really want to be happy always, then only thing which can do so days after days , months after months and years after years is to make others happy. The satisfaction which you get from such things is far larger than even watching a comedy movie to burst out few laughters. After all, laughing doesn’t always mean being happy. A person could be extremely happy and yet show it with a small smile and on the other hand, you could be a master of laughter therapy and yet may not be happy from inside. Ofcourse, I am not denying the benefits of laughter therapy to keep the stress away. In fact, I really recommend it a lot when you are finding it a bit difficult to get out of stress. Must try this.

Again, when I talk about making others happy, I don’t really mean here to make others laugh by sharing few good jokes only. What I mean is rather serious not-so-funny stuff. Help others so that they can feel relatively better and happier. Am sure, that will give double the happiness what other person would have felt.