By Khansa Mushtaq
We live in a world where we have been taught from our childhood that happiness is your goal and have been taught to read, write, and become something in life in order to become so called happy. And when life which is an amalgamation of every emotion hits us we become helpless to deal with emotions like sadness, hurt, heartbreak, and insecurity , helplessness , failures, loneliness because no one told us that they are real and existing and as important and as normal as “happiness” that’s why when we face such emotions we feel not normal .
I can’t claim that I have at this age of mine learnt every solution to tackle every problem of life but I can be very sure of the fact that when you finish reading this article you will treat your sadness or your blues as normal as your happiness. When I was child my definition of happiness was having long hair, going to my grandmother’s home and getting a Barbie bag and pink stationary and today when I think of it I laugh at it , not because its lame but because how my definition of happiness changed over the years . Now today when I am in my late 20’s my definition of happiness is having a good job and of course getting married to someone who loves me and all that crap. Probably I will be laughing at this after 10 years when my definition of happiness will change again.
So basically happiness is not one particular thing or a person it’s just a need in that particular time of one’s life. What we all lack becomes our definition of happiness. What’s sad is that we run after this definition so much that we ignore everything that life teaches us simultaneously.
When we look at it the great teacher of our life so far wasn’t happy moments but the sad ones. They made us who we are; they taught us how to deal with life. It was only these sad moments who made you humble and gave you wisdom towards everything you face in life.
It’s like we have two teachers at school the one who takes you out for a picnic every week and the one who teaches you ,makes you more skilled on weekend. I know we all will love to be with the former one but in life we will remember and thank the later one more because that teacher gave us a skill to make our future easy and the former one just gave good memories. I don’t want to bore you with my article because I know we all have become so impatient in life that we would rather read a quote which says it all than read a full article.
Jokes apart! I just want to tell you whosoever is reading this that no matter where you are in life right now you are successful, not successful, failure, dumped, heartbroken, faced some loss, broke, alone, and sad just know that its normal and be as patient with it as you would be if someone you love would have been at your position.
You will of course give advices, cheer him or her up, wipe that person’s tears and celebrate the joy if any. Try being kind to yourself too and try normalizing other emotions too as you have normalized happiness. Cause trusts me it’s not the end of life...
On concluding, I would like to quote khalil Gibran from one of his best works The Prophet, when a character in it namely Mustafa was asked that “ tell us about joy and sorrow” he said “your joy is your sorrow unmasked”..
By Khansa Mushtaq