What is happiness?

Dear diary,

It's amazing to know how can the blogsphere connect people with their everyday lives. It highlights the marvellous little things that sparkles and bring joy to life; it minimizes the sorrow and pain that breaks you apart; it's a new way of sharing your life with someone else. That's what I think about 'blogging'.

Yesterday I happened to stroll across this very meaningful article about "What is happiness?".

"You will never find happiness if you don't challenge your weaknesses and change yourself from within."

What is happiness?

"Hapiness is not a life without problems, but rather the strength to overcome the problems that come our way. There is no such thing as a problem-free life; difficulties are unavoidable. But how we experience and react to our problems depends on us.

True happiness is to be found within, in the state of our hearts. It does not exist on the far side of some distant mountains, It is within you, yourself. However much you try, you can never run away from yourself. And if you are weak, suffering will follow you whenever you go.

You will never find happiness if you do not challenge your weaknesses and change yourself from within. Happiness is to be found in the dynamism and energy of our own life as you struggle to overcome one obstacle after another.

two kinds of happiness - 'relative' and 'absolute' happiness.

Relative happiness is happiness that depends on things outside ourselves: friends and family, surroundings, the size of our home or family income. This is what we feel when a desire is fulfilled, or something we have longed for is obtained. While the happiness such things bring us in certainly real, the fact is that none of this lasts forever. Things change. People change. This kind of happiness shatters easily when external conditions alter.

Relative happiness is also based on comparison with others. We may feel this kind of happiness at having a newer or bigger home than the neighbours. But that feeling turns to misery the moment they start making new conditions to theirs!

Absolute happiness, on the other hand, is something we must find within. It means establishing a state of life in which we are never defeated by trials, and where just being alive is a source of great joy. This persists no matter what we might be lacking, or what might happen around us. A deep sense of joy is something which can only exist in the innermost reaches of our life, and which cannot be destroyed by any external forces. It is eternal and inexhaustible.

This kind of satisfaction is to be found in consistent and repeated effort, so what we can say, "Today, again, I did my very best. Today, again, I have no regrets. Today, again, I won." The accumulated result of such effort is a life of great victory.

What we should compare is not ourselves against others. We should compare who we are today against who we are yesterday, who we are today against who we will be tomorrow.

While this may seem simple and obvious, true happiness is found in a life of constant advancement. And, the same worries that could have made us miserable can actaully be a source of growth when we approach them with courage and wisdom."

Courtesy of "A Piece of Mirror" by Daisaku Ikeda