How to Organise For Happiness

Its sad for me to hear from time to time that many are constantly depressed although they have such beautiful, seemingly-perfect lives. I was a victim a depression for few years (a long long time ago) and it had lead me to a dark, scary place. I have seen the light since and never turned back. Now that I had learnt the hard way, I wish to share my experiences to my readers so they wont have to go the hard way like I did. I think I have a simple system that have been very easy for me to use.

Feel free to comment your thoughts and share so you can help others as well. Sharing our experience is how we give back to the world.

On Depression 

Depression is a choice, not an affliction. That's the way, I see it. To me, I define the experiences in my life and if I define it as beyond my control so how can I control it?

Thus, the initial definition is very important for future references. Once we define something, the next time it repeats itself, the mind use that definition in categorising it. Help your brain to organise its thought so it can serve you better. So I define it as something as of a choice because I can't control whatever that happens to me. Indeed in Islam. one's fate is already written long before we were born. What matters is how we react to things that happens to us. That's the test.

If you define it something as a sickness that's beyond your control, clearly you can't help yourself then can you? What's the point of doing that? 

Being sad and insecure and hating one’s own self is a choice that we make. Depression is like a black hole where it pulls us inside, the more we delve into it. Being sad is normal, life is full of it but being depressed and not recovering from it is something that we unconsciously choose. Chances are, we are waiting for a saviour to pull us out of our own misery and suddenly be happy. It is up for us to rescue ourselves, pull ourselves together, look in the mirror and love ourselves again for what we are.

For me, the search for peace starts from the most inside, then we work to the external. The first step to improve anything starts on identifying and analysing then only we can work on what's lacking. How can we fix what we don't even know? So we start with knowing ourselves, then people around us, then the environment. The goal is to purify and harmonise the internal and external realms.

Internal

1. Know thy self 

Learn about yourself. Discover who you really are. 

You are not your family, you are not your race, not your religion, not your house, your wife, your kids, the things that you own, your status in society. All these things do not define the essence of you, merely a temporary facade of you. You need to dig deeper and seek your true essence for in everyone there is something special that others do not have. A talent, an ability that you are born with. Find that early so you can work on it. This can change too. It's your life.

2. Have faith and Always Be Grateful 

If you think you are just a mamalian vertebrae descnedant of monkeys who was born accidentally with no purpose in life, of course it will be depressing for you. It's a no brainer.

Have faith. Humans cannot live without a higher power that lifts their fears, worries away. Why face the world alone when you can have your Rabb, The Sustainer who have been taking care of you all thise while?. Take a little bit time for prayers and convey your deepest feelings to him.. Grow your soul. Mankind would not survive if they solely deal the world with logic and reason, but faith is the only thing that we can rely on all the time especially when everything else fails. 

Start everyday feeling grateful and thankful for what you have. If you cannot accept what you are now, it will hard to change things because its not about what you have actually. It's your reaction and how you feel about what you have that really matters. If you constantly react and judge negatively to what you already have, good things will find it hard to come into your life. 

 3. Your Mind and Your Body

Understand and improve your mental and physical capabilities but do not exceed for it's always pushing too hard that people crash. Nothing good comes from brute force. You are not a nail to be hammered.

Learn and improve your skills and abilities. Compete with yourself daily so tomorrow makes a better you.

Learn how to quiet the mind. Listen to your body.

Watch out for what you consume and what you give out

Your interaction with the world around you consists of what you let into you and what you give out. There is a natural balance that the Universe and the game is just simple. You get what you give, eventually. There's no cheating but there are hacks.

External 

 4. Your Relationship with Other People

Give love to people and you will receive love. Its not giving things or wealth, but rather companionship, time , effort and empathy . The satisfaction of giving is much more rewarding in the long run compared to receiving. 

If you compare to people who don’t have food, shelter or clothes in other unfortunate countries, you will be ashamed to be sad of such trivial matters such as not having the perfect set of teeth. Make visits to hospitals, old folks home, special children homes, orphanages or better still, visit your old sickly uncles, aunts and relatives to bring you back to earth again. 

5. Your System

Treat everything as a whole system that you can manage and improve. Once you are able to see all the interaction as one whole system then you can design even better solutions for the system. Everything from 1 to 4 is interconnected so you can mix and match and play around for the best solutions. It's easier when you compatmentalise everything.

There, now it's not that difficult, isn't it? Do share your feedback..