How to find happiness (from a friend)
A page in the diary "Accept, Adapt and Appreciate: How?"
Written by nw4m Aug 29 2008 10:31 AM
I met up with a friend this Tuesday and this is my first time seeing him in person.
I asked him how he got to where he is now, being confident with himself, and getting to know a new girlfriend after his previous break-up.
He jotted this down when I went to buy lunch:
1) Know what you want
2) Be willing to pay the price
3) Do it / Go out and get it
4) Live your life the way where you can live happily without what you want. Cherish what you already have (detachment).
5) Cherish what you have once you get it.
If this is the order in which one finds lasting happiness, then I wonder when I would really succeed. My friend told me he took 10 years. But he's really a smart, brave and determined guy.
Do I have what it takes?
I told him I have been searching since I was in kindergarten and I still don't get what I want or what I need.
I feel really hopeless...I feel like giving up...cos I really don't know how to live my way happily without what I want...sometimes what I want is actually a need and sometimes what I need is actually a want....
I posted his guidelines (which he came to realise on his own based on his life experiences thus far) so that even if I lack the necessary conditions to succeed at the end of my life, I hope that others would be able to try these guidelines and succeed on their own one day.
If for whatever reasons, I can't succeed in getting what I want or need, I hope others will succeed because I hope for others to be happy.
It's much better or less selfish to think and feel this way till I die than to scorn at or be jealous at the strength and perseverance of others in finding their own happiness.
May all be happy and peaceful even though I am not.