Genuine Joy/Happiness Comes from Within 1

Life isn’t the sweetest candy. Sometimes, I feel like the world is just too heavy, but then I look around and find people who have continued to live fascinating and wonderful lives. And then I ask myself – “How did their life become so adorably sweet? How come they still can manage to laugh and play around despite a busy and sometimes stressful life?” Then I paused and pondered for awhile… I figured out that maybe, they started to work on a place called ‘SELF’.

So, how does one become genuinely happy? Step 1 is to love yourself.

My theology professor once said that “loving means accepting.” To love oneself means, not only to accept that you are not a perfect being, but that in that imperfection lies some God-given abilities to make something good out of your life.

However, loving yourself and discovering those abilities are not always possible without a heartfelt relationship with Jesus. He made you, He knows you best and He put all those abilities in you in the first place. Who better to make you love yourself than the One that made you?

Genuine happiness also pertains to contentment. When you are contented with the job you have, the way you look, with your family, your friends, the place you live in, your car, and all the things you now have.

I believe that life is about finding out about Purpose, right and wrong, trying and failing, winning and loosing. Failure, in a person’s life has become as abundant and necessary as air. But this should not hinder us from becoming genuinely joyful/happy.

How to be genuinely happy in spite of all these? I tell you… every time you exert effort to improve the quality of your life and your being, whether it is cleaning up your room, helping a friend, taking care of your sick dog, fail on board exams and trying again, life gives you equivalent points for that.

Imagine life as a big score board like those which are used in the NFLs. Every time you take a step forward, you make scoring points. Wouldn’t it be nice to look at that board at the end of each game and think to yourself “Whew! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot.”, instead of looking at it all blank and murmur “Geez, I didn’t even hit a score today. I wish I had the guts to try out. We could have won!” and then walk away.

I will conclude this discuss in my next post.