The ART OF HAPPINESS PART 2

More and more this life seems like a game I am playing. I have this new found realization that everything is the way it is and que sera sera. Why do we label people, things, relationships, love? Who cares if someone hurts you? Who cares if you have a good job or a bad one? We are just obsessed with satisfying our ego that we do not feel the need to think about ourselves as one small piece in a giant puzzle. My Aunt, Nina, recently gave a TED talk on educating the children in India and bettering our governmental school system. Her passion was evident in her voice and the pictures she showed were powerful. Her role is to spread the word of social work in helping children become educated, and I know my role is to help children reach their full potential in terms of staying health and wellbeing. Health is a prerequisite to success and if one is not healthy nothing can be accomplished…. My desire and passion to serve was instilled in me at a young age. Instead of finding everything wrong with India, right now I just want to focus on what is right. Indian people are the most hospitable and India has some of the most beautiful views on Earth: Himalayas, Coorg, Rishikesh, Taj Mahal.

The truth is we have to change the way we see the world and change the lens we are wearing….Everyone is happy all around me, I am the one seeing the divide more than others. So it is my lens that needs to change. I am humbled by this experience. My challenge is to change the way we look at life and at others by not passing judgment. Sure there are so many things wrong and need to be fixed, but sometimes those things are out of my control. If I can’t change what is around me, I can change my reaction to it, right? JUST BE. Happiness is not what we have, or what we don’t have, not out friendships or the people who come and go, it is who we are and how we choose to live this short amount of time we are here on Earth. Newton’s Law states that Energy is neither created nor destroyed just transferred. So maybe this life is already written in the scriptures for us or maybe we can control over our actions. I still can’t answer that, but I know we have control over our attitude and our spirit since that is our energy f!eld. My friend kindly reminded me that our spirit does matter, and I have to agree with him! I truly feel that everything is as it should be in this world. Without greed we can’t appreciate poverty. Without sadness we can not appreciate happiness. We have to have the polar opposites for contrast and for comparison. And it is I who thinks poverty is bad, but maybe they are the richest of all of us. Not in wealth, but in relationships, quality of life, and fun. I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is trying to plan her wedding. She seems upset since she can’t get a venue with what she wants despite her budget of 100k. Then when I was on my way to the PHC (Primary Health Center) we passed a rural village where there was a wedding going on. People were dancing in the streets as music was being streamed via a loud speaker and the roar of laughter was contagious. People were sitting on the floor in a giant open space and having dinner on giant banana leaves. It highly contrasted to the engagement party I went to during my first week at the best venue in town with a singer who flew in from Bombay. People appeared more stiff and I couldn’t get myself to let loose. There was so much food available that no one even touched since the variety of pasta, mexican, chinese, and Indian cuisine was more overwhelming then tasty. In this case, I wanted to jump out of the car and just dance! I insisted on listening to Bollywood jams and we danced in our seats and laughed all the way home. Then during my last dinner with the children we cranked the music up and danced the night away. There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them ☺