Many people really want to do well in life. We want to do well in life because it provides us with mental, emotional and psychological health. We want all the good things of life because they make us happy. Being educated brings happiness, being employed brings happiness, being married brings happiness, birthing babies brings happiness, being rich brings happiness, good health brings happiness, owning a house of your own brings happiness and being sure you can pay all your bills and defend yourself against any financial embarrassment brings happiness, but ladies and gentlemen, the happiness all these can bring you can never be sustained by all these. Happiness derived from achievements and acquisitions are temporary and transient. Such happiness is never perpetual.
This is simply because possessions and accomplishments are neutral elements, your perception and interpretation of these things at different times determine how you feel about them, not the things in themselves. That’s why at times you’re excited about your job and at other times, you’re not, sometimes you’re excited about your marriage and other times you’re not. Your marriage and your job may not have changed, but your experience, perception and interpretation of developments while in it, interfere with your emotional disposition towards these.
I’ve seen poor people laugh out loud and I’ve seen the rich cry bitterly, I’ve seen single people celebrate their single status and I’ve seen married people weep over their marriages. I’ve seen commuters laugh at one another and tease even in the rain and I’ve seen expensive car owners frown, hiss and look frustrated in their beautiful air-conditioned cars.
Dear friend, to live your life with the sole aim of pursuing happiness through chasing wants and needs is a delusion. Happiness does not come from what you have, own or have acquired, real happiness comes from following your conviction in life. True happiness does not come from the outside, it actually bubbles up from within.
It makes me personally sad to behold a nation like Nigeria with abundance of natural resources, a nation filled with extremely energetic, intelligent and creative people, miss their wealth in life, miss direction in life and trade off our prestigious place and position of pride in the world because the majority of us don’t truly know or understand the source of true happiness.
You can go far and wide, search all you can, but you’ll eventually discover that happiness and peace in life is a product of doing what you’re designed and created to do for others in this life. You can never be happy with a takers mentality, you can never be a happy person if you’re a selfish person.
You see, everyone in this world is created with a concern, a passion, a pain or interest in and for one area of humanity or the other. There is something about mankind, there is something about our relationships, there is something about our friendships; there is something about communal living that makes us feel responsible and accountable for others hence their opinion about us matter a great deal, this makes us real and normal as humans.
Any emotionally stable person is concerned and sensitive to the opinion of others in relation to himself or herself. This is a natural pointer to the fact that we all naturally owe humanity something.
Rejection, Isolation, seclusion, incarceration and exiles are various forms of punishment that tortures your psyche as a human being. This is because you’re designed to live and interact and support humanity, now, if you feel tortured when alienated from people, it’s the proof you exist as a form of support element for humanity, you don’t just live or exist for yourself or to serve yourself alone, it’ll frustrate you. That’s why even the very rich and famous sometimes commit suicide.
No matter the number of people in and around your life, you’ll remain lonely and unhappy if you feel everyone owes you something and you owe no one nothing.
So there are many of us today who’s come some distance from where we started from, yes you now have the good job, you now hold that key position, yes, you’re now a manager, a director, an MD, a CEO, you’re now a successful business owner, yes, you’re now married, you appear to have those things you’ve ever wanted, you’re free from depression, frustration, lack, hurt and pain caused by circumstances in your past, but right now, you’re still not excited or happy in life. You, my friend, sincerely still don’t understand the purpose of what you now have.
Consequently, all the energy and sacrifice and effort made to go past your past and build your current life of accomplishments will inevitably, become instruments of oppression, intimidation, repression, subjugation and harassment of others because your current achievements didn’t bring the happiness you anticipated, so you take out your frustration on the people in and around your life.
You’d think everyone’s envies you, you think everyone is jealous, you think people want to take advantage, you think they want your downfall, you think they all don’t really like you and everyone is probably pretending and this, affects you a great deal.
Based on this thinking, you treat innocent people wrong and hurt them, they in turn take offence and start treating you badly too and in your so called achievements and accomplishments, you’re faced even, with new enemies, many troubles and many relationship crisis.
Dear friend, the lens through which you choose to see the world will go a long way in shaping your perspective in life and the authentic way to real happiness. Happiness in life is not about seeking comfort but manifesting your real humanitarian conviction.
Despite your many troubles, disappointments, betrayals, rejection and pain, despite how nasty people have treated you and loved ones hurt you to pieces, I know somewhere on your inside you’re still a kind, loving, caring and compassionate person. The pains, disappointments, betrayal and anguish of time past may have re-tuned your mind differently but I promise you, you’re naturally a kind and considerate person.
You naturally love to see people happy, satisfied and prosperous. It’s a natural human tendency. People that celebrate the pain of others do so as consolation for their own personal pains, not because they love to see other people hurt, but the thought, they’re not the only ones in pain or other people are even in worse situations, is kind of soothing for them.
Dear friend, what is that thing you know you should do for humanity? What is that desire you have for a better family, community, society and nation? What breaking news bothers, you, troubles you or depresses you? Who do you care about and what would you really want to do about them and their situation?
The decision to remain in your defined comfort zone, is the sacrifice of your authentic and perpetual happiness. You can’t be truly happy till you decide to spread happiness. Haven’t you observed the happiest moment for most people is when they throw lavish parties and many people are drinking, eating, dancing and celebrating on their account?
The more happiness you give, the more happiness you have. Your actual comfort zone is not your place of ease, rest or false security. Your real comfort zone is in the practice of your natural conviction about your role, duty and assignment in this world towards humanity.
Your effort to help the sick, your passion to protect children, your concern about troubled marriages, domestic violence and oppressed widows, your interest in singles, the youth and teenagers, your desire to see people prosper, your burden for internally displaced persons and refugees, your love to protect and provide for the poor, your care for young teenager parents and orphans, your passion for nation building and social order; dear friend, the place of attending to the pain and trouble of humanity as it touches you deeply is your true comfort zone in this world. Blessed are those who comfort others for they shall be comforted, as the God of all comfort will bring comfort into every area of their own lives as well – this is the key to perpetual happiness; your real comfort zone.
The day you’re willing to work at something to help someone who can’t repay you is the day true happiness shows up in your life. That place where you work to serve humanity and don’t bother about getting paid is your authentic comfort zone, dear friend, it’s time to shift.
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