Are you in despair and unhappy? It’s possible that your past mistakes may have caught up with your thoughts and somehow messed with your happiness. The key to understanding why you’re upset in the first place and couldn’t be happier- lies with you!

Don’t we all spend one helluva time thinking about what we need to be happy? Do we ever think what holds us back when we believe we have done enough for some life changing tomorrow?

Honestly…changing life for some good is not that easy. We learn every day and take each day with a grain of salt to make space for a brighter tomorrow.

This isn’t about that though, is it? Clearly not…I’d wager it doesn’t end up nicely all the time.

An irrational hunt for happiness has been waging for decades in true sense and the rage is yet to die down. Even Roger Hargreaves in his 1971 rhetoric ‘Mr Happy’ with all his hippy dippy wellbeing ideas couldn’t get any close to being relief to more modern ideas about mid-life burnout and the gut wrenching resignation syndrome!!

When young, I had learned an easy way to guard myself; I pretended –I don’t care and because I wouldn’t, nothing would hurt me. To me, it was simple game plan and it worked so well; sadly if only for a short period of time. In exchange, I gave up all hope of building some meaningful relationships, warmth and few fine moments of euphoria.

In college I wasn’t any close to camaraderie either; almost no friends. I never went to parties or would hustle to catch up for coffees with campus buddies.

Of course that hurt. Deep within I desperately longed for the college life that you’d see splashed across billboards or experience in some smug misty-eyed soap channel. But the thought of putting out and possible snub was just overwhelming.

So, I convinced myself- I have no time for friends.

I was bitter, angry and sometimes resented everyone and everything; but at least I spared myself any rebuff.

Fortunately, as I grew up I learned to open up and face myself. Yup! it did hurt sometimes. It’s never fun to judge yourself.

But you know what? Today, it feels better than the other alternative; settling for a life half lived!

If you have read me this far, it’s possible that your moonlight happiness story has got lost somehow. You’re caught in a web of your past mistakes or maybe you’ve been giving more brains than brawl to your past and have wrecked your present as a consequence.

Whatever…

Isn’t it time to stop living adrift? How else could you ever hope to be happy again, if you can’t let go of what’s already happened?

If you ask me, life is both beautiful and ugly and we all get to choose how we want to spend it. Many of us make things way more complicated and usually crash out than live it in a simple way. Yet there are those too who endure each day with a happy sunshine view on life.

And so could you; only if you know how to look forward to improve your life!

Here are a few simple-yet powerful things; not judgment, toxicity, perfection, gossip, grudges or excuses; the usual trivia-  that you need to let go right away, if  you want to  reward yourself;

Create some free space for joy and happiness

Happiness comes from living true to yourself.  Sure, we all make mistakes and stumble and fumble, but then life is far from perfect. It’s comforting if you play it by your own rules and not the one pieced together by others.

When we spend too much time wondering and thinking about other’s lives, we lose sight of all that that matters to us. Instead of living for our hopes and dreams, we start following someone else’s play book. This slowly becomes a plucky gamble; one that you can never hope to win.

So, look around, let others inspire you but when you feel that you are beginning to lose yourself, it’s time to let go…that clammy endless collating.

Renew and get rid of the rascal in you

Not that it deliberately blocks happiness from entering our lives when you want it …but it tends to make-believe that everything in life hovers between black and white, right and wrong, good and bad.

I’ve struggled with this wretch and it has earned me only a lot of unnecessary stress and conflict in my life.

#She comes to date tonight, or she doesn’t love me.

#I either succeed today, or I’m a complete jerk.

#You will either support me totally on this, or you don’t trust me.

Do these sound any familiar? I had burrowed myself in cheat stories like these in my ‘I’m hype’ age and it’s something that I lock horns with even today.

But I have learned to respect the duality of life. I make space for it. Today, someone cancels plans and I still love that person unconditionally. I’d fail over and over again in some weird project and yet I’d know I have made progress. I believe in her though I know sometimes I’d get to face some raised eyebrows.

Of course, certain things in life are not there to question but you need to stop jumping to conclusions.

Begin by accepting that every life holds many shades of grey.

Love it or hate it but ditch perfection

There is hardly anything wrong with self improvement only if you could keep in mind that chase to perfection never ends. In fact, it may even keep you away from happiness and stall you from taking risks. You may miss living life to the fullest.

Perfection to me is nothing short of a huge problem. You set for yourself high banners and grails but you merely rollick between better and the best.

And it reeks of sickness and twisted psyche…. You’ll always feel as if haven’t done enough or maybe you’re not good enough to deliver. This may even stop you from trying anything at all.

We perceive this as something negative…something that destroys our flair and clouds our judgement.

However, I see it differently . I consider this to be my USP for I’ve tried hardest to reach the best. Giving your 100% is kinda celebrating your uniqueness that made you so different.

Once you accept that moving forward is more important than being flawless, you’ll never again be afraid to make mistakes.

Everybody sometimes fail and so would you. So, simply endure. It’s more important that you embrace these mistakes and learn from them than let these mistakes keep you away from trying something at all!

It’s tough to keep everybody happy

It’s natural for us to want people to like us for making them happy. But sometimes it hurts. It prevents us from being happy ourselves. This has a lot to do with our insight about what makes others happy.

You’d say that if people are pleased, they’ll be happy. But it doesn’t work that way always.

Happiness finds way in our life only if and when we want it to. True…we feel it when we succeed in making others happy. But it’s unlikely that the end result is true happiness. It’s tough to keep everybody happy for people have different needs. You might end up making somebody unhappy because of what you did to make someone else happy!

See!…It’s exhausting and stressful when we neglect our own happiness and rank pleasing others above ours.

Not that you should drop caring about others and getting along with them. Making someone smile feels fantastic and could greatly affect your own joy. But incessantly trying to please others usually backfires. So stop gagman theatrics and be your friend first.

Bliss will follow…

Piano man with hard habits!

It’s human to believe that one’s always right. That’s even true when it might not be the case. Different values and beliefs is what decide between right and wrong. So when you say you’re right, it might mean that opinion differs.

Of course, it’s hard not to assume that we’re right unless proven otherwise. And to believe that you’re right 100% of the time, sometimes has negative portends. Endless arguments and pointless conflicts don’t prove a thing because there are two sides to every argument. “I don’t know”, say this and you acknowledge that you don’t know everything.

Conflicts would wane when you take this simple huge step in the right direction.

And that’s something, Yup…that will make you feel happier.

It’s never been easy and I’m still learning every day; but for now I can yell a lungful; I’m happier than ever before. I have laid off things that used to make my space crappier and buried the hatchet for good. In return I have earned me a brighter tomorrow.

And I have touched the piano man with a golden heart …