Ashok Sharma
Life is a mixture of joys and sorrows.Everybody passes through the cycle of joys and sorrows;success and failures in life.But in their search for joy and happiness,people generally seek them in materialistic things such as big houses, expensive car, motor bike, costly television, LED and other expensive electronic gadgets.We also strive to seek happiness in eating in big hotels and restaurants, buying and wearing branded clothes and shoes and using other such things.But it must be remembered that these things have little connection with real joy and these things can give us only transitory joy and not eternal one.True joy, in fact, is concealed only in the simplest of things which are God given ones and inexpensive and cost little.Watching vast green crop fields, butterflies flying to and fro, birds flying together high above our heads can give us unparalleled joy which material things cannot.We can also get eternal joy by rediscovering ourselves and following our dream sincerely for which we have been destined to be in this world.In fact, self realization is one of the objectives of our education, according to our saints and educationists. it is always the small and simple things which have the power to fill our hearts with supreme joy.First of all, Nature is a beautiful and perennial source of joy.If one has his eyes and heart open, it is a divine experience to watch flowing serpentine rivers, high snow clad mountains, flowers of different colours and hues and other different forms of biodiversity which God has provided us to add beauty and variety to Nature and which can give us sublime joy and amusement. Then meeting our old friends and listening to old soulful music sitting all alone at home can revive our old memories and prove to be a source of great joy which we cannot get from materialistic things.
There are other ordinary and inexpensive things which can give us supreme joy.Spending quality time with the members of our family and our true friends, sharing their joys and sorrows is what we can truly enjoy a lot.The activities such as walking in the rain in summer, watching nomads walk with their herds of sheep, working in the garden, watching old and favourite movies, planning random get together and surprise candlelight dinners with our family, playing with clay, watching the wonderful sight of sunset and sunrise,.etc.give us indescribable joy and happiness.What is required is to appreciate all these things and love them.We should also review our life now and then and find out ways and means to find joy in the simple things available to us.We should reduce our workload and increase our funload and take some time off our busy schedule to derive joy and happiness from such commonplace things.The inexpensive sources of sublime joy and happines are endless.We ought to celebrate good occasions and sing our heart out and dance to our hearts fill as and when we get a chance.Living in the present, taking light exercise, gardening,meditation and deep breathing can also give us great joy.Reading newspapers and books of great writers can give joy which cannot be expressed in words. Books are a great source of joy.A book is not simply a collection of pages. Reading is a great hobby and we ought to read books including biographies by great writers. While reading, the true reader gets transported to various lands and identifies himself/herself with different characters in the play/novel/story. Reading great love poems by great poets such as Shakespeare, John Keats etc. stirs our hearts to divine ecstasy and can give us inexpressible joy.
Friends are a great blessing in this world and they stand us in good stead in our joys and sorrows. We ought to value the bliss of their friendship and no amount of wealth, status or financial possition can compensate for a life devoid of friendship.They share our joys and sorrows helping in leading our life in a meaningful manner.We should also write handwritten letters and messages to our friends on their birthdays and other occasions and pour our heart out to tell them that we do take care of them and our frienship with them is valuable and priceless. Playing happily with children and volunteering for help of the poor and needy can give us joy and blessings which material things cannot give.It is also advisable to find time for one’s ownself.For this purpose,switch off your phone and be with yourself for some time everday to be with yourself.Thus,getting extraordinary joy from ordinary moments is a true route to happiness.We ought to forget the past bitter memories and strive to live out our imagination and present; not history.
(The writer is serving as lecturer in English, Govt. Hr. Sec. School, Thial (Udhampur)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel