Tag: happiness

Learning How To Be Truly Happy For Someone Else

1 Comment

Reality check. As much as we would all love to be completely selfless and really be happy for someone else’s success, we aren’t. Most of us get jealous. Most of us envy. Most of us can show an outward happy face and continue to think “why not me?”.

It’s okay. It’s human. We all do this. And then we feel bad for feeling that way. We should feel just happiness for those we love, shouldn’t we? Then, why do we do this?

We are programmed for survival of the fittest. We are competitive. We want to win. And when we don’t, we feel bad for ourselves and that infringes on our happiness for someone else.

So how do we get past it?

It requires changing the way you react to things, the way you think about things. You might have to review your initial reaction and really try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You might have to fake it until the reaction is real. The last thing you would want is for someone to bring you down when you’re on top of the world. So why would you want to do that to someone else?

And it really means something to others when you show happiness for their accomplishments. Even if its hard to see, you, as a friend, significant other, family, helped in this achievement by supporting them through their path. Know this. It will help. 

And when we can truly be happy for someone else, we have achieved something great as well. 

We Are the Masters of Distraction

1 Comment

Yesterday, I went to a board meeting for a charity that I have been involved with and watched these amazing people in the generation above me spend their time and passion to furthering a great educational cause. These people are the examples of what I want my future to be like, especially when I retire. They are using their time on this earth to really make a difference in the world. I started thinking that they are doing a great job at getting involved and distracting themselves from what could be a really boring daily life routine otherwise. Then, it occurred to me that we, Indians, are really the masters of distraction. We have extremely busy social lives, we work abnormally hard, we do as much as we can in the short amount of time we have on earth (that is, if you don’t believe in reincarnation and that we will come back and do it all over again). We know how to fill up our day so we just go, go, go. But sometimes, this isn’t a good thing.

I wanted to talk about the other side of how we use distraction in our daily life. There are so many times that we use all of the things we do to hide the emotional side of our lives. We go to these events and hang out with just about anyone to really turn off the insight we have into our own feelings. We figure if we don’t think about it, it doesn’t exist.

A few years ago, I went through a pretty bad depression. I was lucky enough to have friends and family that made me realize that I needed help. If that had not happened, I would have either continued being depressed or used other events in my life to distract me from having to deal with it. I don’t know if that would have helped or prolonged it. I do know that I am glad that I learned how to deal with all of my issues head on.

Facing depression isn’t easy. Being Indian, we come from a culture where emotions aren’t a recognizable reason for doing something. If you think about it, we haven’t had to struggle as our parents have, we have led pretty stable lives with a lot of opportunity, we have had the choices in life to really do what we want. What reasons could we have for possibly have for depression?

Depression isn’t something that you can always control. External factors also can trigger it. If you go through several big losses in your life, I’d be surprised if you didn’t have some sort of strong emotional reaction to them. Just moving on is ideal but in my opinion, it doesn’t seem realistic.

I think it’s time for our culture to realize that emotions don’t just happen in movies. Emotions happen and sometimes, they happen a lot harder than anyone realizes. The only way to get past it is to take the first step into awareness. Only then, you can get help. I have seen people in our generation and even the generation above us be sad but not understand why. Sometimes, the lack of awareness for these types of emotions is astounding.

So, if you have experienced something like this to any extent in your life, know that it’s normal and it’s okay. We all go through it but as any “good” Indian society member would do, we just don’t talk about it. We need to get it out there and realize that this is a very real thing and the only way to deal with it is not by just distracting yourself but by acknowledging it and then, learning what to do to make it better. Your emotional well-being is important to your health and your happiness.

So why do we have such a hard time taking our emotions seriously?

The Indian Kid Mentality

Leave a comment

Have you ever really wanted to do something but have trouble doing it without feeling guilty about it? If it’s for pure fun or maybe not the most logical, practical choice, the feelings of “why am I putting myself first?” manifest themselves inside you and then there is the famous tug of war between what we want and what we should do. Is it possible to be selfish for the good of ourselves when our conscience is in constant overdrive? Or is that just the voice of the Indian culture?

This idea of duty and responsibility is something I know I’ve dealt with and put on myself throughout my entire life. I don’t know how I came to think that way instead of doing what I wanted but it definitely was my own mind that put that pressure on me. My own ideas of what I thought I was supposed to be doing caused me to make the decisions that I make.

Until I get to that point where I realize that this isn’t what is making me happy. And that gets to a point where I know I need to make a change or I’ll be miserable.

So let’s discuss the “Indian kid mentality” as my friend called it yesterday. Why do we stick to certain things even if they don’t make us happy? I understand we are raised by a generation where they risked a lot to come to America and create a stable and opportunity filled life for us. Aren’t we obligated to take the next step and really try to make it a happy life? There are those that did break out of the standard but the majority of us still stuck to stability as our main driving force. What is it about quitting or ending something or changing something that scares us half to death? I even question myself before buying something that might be a little bit more expensive than normal.

Can anyone explain how we can really start listening to ourselves instead of pushing ourselves to the point of misery?

Who wants to play the victim?

Leave a comment

I want you to be really honest with yourself. How many times have you played the victim on something just to get attention or empathy? 

I think most of us do from time to time, especially when we don’t feel like we get the acknowledgment for our efforts. We shout out the things we do. We play up how bad we feel about something. On any given day, these are things that we might not say or do but today, something made us feel like no one was paying attention to the effort we put into life, our jobs, our relationships. 

Playing the victim isn’t something that has to be extreme. It could be as simple as saying “I had so much to do today”. Translation: “My life is busier than yours so please appreciate that I made the time to see/talk/listen to you.” I know that this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, saying that you had a lot to do today is really just that. You had a lot to do today. But sometimes, maybe it’s not the case. Maybe it’s really a way to seek some acknowledgement for your effort in whatever it is you’re doing. 

Think about it this way as well. There is one day where you get to go do something you’ve always wanted to do and you’re really excited. There is another day where you have to fulfill some obligation that isn’t the top of your priority list. What are the chances the same exact cold will make you feel worse the day you have to do something you don’t want to do whereas you’ll survive fine the day you get to do something fun?

Another way I’ve watched people play the victim (or done it myself) is where they silently martyr through something they don’t want to do so they can resent someone for having to do it and then later, throw it back at them. That sounds healthy, doesn’t it? Especially when you add in years of being friends or living together. I see this a lot in marriages in our Indian culture. Why be unhappy when we can find a way to make ourselves happy? Maybe we should one day explore that idea of it’s easier to be unhappy than to be happy. But we’ll save that for another day.  

And then comes the day where playing the victim doesn’t sound like much fun. There are 2 ways to get attention: play the victim or just be interesting while living your own life. That’s when I decide that I’d rather find a way to be happy in my own life and not worry about attention at all. There have been a few months recently where playing the victim was all I could do. Then, recently, I decided that this way wasn’t going to work for me. I am now working on ways to enjoy myself regardless of everyone else. 

This doesn’t mean I don’t fall back into a pattern that I’ve seen so much throughout my life. I do. But awareness is the first step to solving a problem. And one of the goals of life is to be happy throughout the journey as well as at the destination. So I will take that first step.