When I started blogging again, then one thought was quite prominent in my mind, We can’t reach a milestone everyday in terms of finances or career or fun. We can’t wait for few milestones in our lives to be happy. We can’t party everyday. We can’t hang out with friends and family everyday. We can’t holiday everyday. We can’t watch movies everyday. We can’t go for makeover everyday.

Everyday of a student or a business tycoon or a movie star or ordinary office-goer is quite dull or drab. Then what can we do make it fun everyday? How to feel content and happy everyday? Is it difficult? Is it possible? That’s how my journey begins. I want to explore the possibilities of happiness and contentment each day in the midst of same dull and drab affairs?

Today I didn’t have any problem to feel happy, excited and content.I had a fabulous hot breakfast with my sister. I know she was going back to her place today so there was a feeling of reverse counting. But I tried to make it up by not thinking too much about it. Why waste present moment of togetherness?

Another thing was, its a beautiful day with lots of sunlight and cool breeze. A perfect day to be outdoors. Its a GREAT opportunity to feel that you are part of vast sky, cool breeze, chirping birds and blooming flowers. Otherwise it seems we are oblivious to the fact that we live in too much harmony with concrete, mortar, girdles, rods adorning balconies and brick-walls, So after breakfast I came out with our pets and little one. I put the pets at a sunny-shady spot and settled down with newspapers. I gathered other children from our society too. They all played nosily and it was hard to remain unaffected by their mirth, joy, enthusiasm and laughter.

Garden

Vast stretch of Blue Sky

Late in the evening we went to a flower show where they had a carnival too. Should I write more?

Ah! Weekends! How the name weekends sound music to ears. Even a happy feeling creeps in on the Friday evening itself.Weekend means throw all the carefully crafted routine to winds. Weekend means being yourself or breaking free from daily routine. I love it when we go out to visit someone or our friends and family come to visit us.

On Friday night my sister came to our place to spend weekend. All the more reason to be irresponsible because she is there to take care of things. My in-laws visited us too. So we had a nice evening and some nice conversation. Simple home cooked food acquires new meaning and taste when shared with your family huddled together. TV, movies, eating out everything is forgotten. When three generations are having dinner together you can’t imagine how conversation varies and how stimulated your mind feels.
How friends and family ensures that you are still loved ad cherished no matter what the world out there thinks about you. You can always be yourself and your dear ones make sure that the child inside you remains alive and kicking. How there love and care free us from our daily prim and proper self. How they know intuitively what makes you happy and what irks you or how to pull your leg without being nasty.
I am fond of long walks. When my sister accompanies me, we can walk and talk whole night with a midnight snacks of Maggie noodles. Sometimes, we really greeted morning while walking the whole night around our house. Ah! Those days! Once I remember we cousins were sitting on the road in a circle around 2 O’ Clock talking animatedly. A police-wallah was on the round and he started marching towards us. One of my cousins found her voice and said, “Uncle, we live in this house.” Hearing a female voice, he was reassured that we were not hatching some conspiracy to rob a bank!
I remember how much we shared during those talks. How many jokes we cracked, how many stories we told, how many promises we made, how many card games we played and how we encouraged one another to not give up when difficulties were staring us in eyes and sometimes how many heated discussions we had on politics,sports and society in general.
So when my sister visits me we still try to take those long walks and tell our husbands that we will be back within an hour but we NEVER…

I consciously make a choice to be happy. Today is my first day. I promised to wake up and flood my mind with positive thoughts and emotions. What happened today?

When I woke up the first thought that crossed my mind was, “Oh! s**t! I don’t want to wake up with this intense pain in my leg and back of my thigh!” I put myself inside the quilt again. SO much for flooding my mind with blah! blah! blah! But somewhere deep within the valley of my mind that promise was rearing its head and I remembered to start my day with positive thoughts. Did I shoot out of bed and everything was alright? Hardly so.

My first thought was I have to rush, I hardly have ten minutes for flooding my mind with positive thoughts. But somewhere I have to find a way. So I got out of bed and tried to do usual chores with positive thoughts in my mind. Initially the only feeling I was going through was pain in legs. And damn it how hard it is to concentrate on only one thing for five minutes. So my mind kept wondering in thousand directions and I have to reign it and put it back on some positive thoughts. And I struggled in search of positive thoughts too! Then I started singing a song in my head. That REALLY helped! I was able to concentrate on the song and went ahead with usual daily chores.

After a while I realized that pain was not that intense in my legs and I can actually hum instead of grumbling and complaining. As the day progressed I forgot all about my pain. Its a dull reminder now. I sent my dear one to her daily destination with a smile. Now I am happily at my desk engrossed in my work. For tomorrow I think I will play some beautiful, soft, melodious and sweet songs on my deck that can fill the whole household with sweet gentle energy needed for the morning. So whenever I GET time I will burn a CD of my favorite songs having sweet soothing melodies.
For tomorrow, I will try to incorporate healthy servings of fruits and salad on DAILY basis in our diet. Till now its on and often thing. But I will try to change this from now onwards. But how to make it a happy experience? My mind is blank on that front but the only consolation is I will be glad if the youngest member of my family picks it up as a habit and continue it for the rest of her life. That can be a good gift to my little one.

Once I was thinking about time. And suddenly a thought struck me that with each passing year, month, week, day, hour and minute, we are moving away from our loved ones and from ourselves too. Even the day we are born the clock starts ticking away and reverse counting starts. With each passing day, we are nearing our final destination. But instead of making me disturbed, this thought compelled me to be happy each day. To make most of the time I have with my near and dear ones.
I took a pledge that I will try to be happy each day. I will do at least one thing that makes me happy and content. And try to pen it down and relive it whenever I want.

Today I thought that whenever I wake up in the morning I will flood my mind and emotions with good and positive thoughts. That might prove refreshing because I am not a morning person and wake up grouchy and grumpy. Tomorrow onwards before leaving my bed, I will try to close my eyes and visualize. I will visualize pleasant and positive things then start my day.

Mostly what happens is I wake up in foul mood and keep quiet for a long time in the morning so that not to rub off my mood to others.Why not get rid off that foul pause and start day with bright and cheerful note? Why not be happy from the start? I don’t know how my experiment with being happy will turn out. But there is no harm in trying.
No one has too much luxury of time on this beautiful planet to be sad, bitter, blue, cheerless, dejected, despondent, distressed and down in dumps. Why not make a conscious choice and be happy? I will CONSCIOUSLY try to do one thing everyday to be happy. Flooding my mind with positive emotions and thoughts while waking up is my promise to myself.

How the meaning of happiness differ from person to person. Millions will be so happy to settle down in heaven on earth Switzerland with a career of their choice with Euro in their purse. But not Narayanan Krishnan, CNN Hero.

He was working as a chef in a five star hotel. All set to go to Switzerland. The ultimate Indian middle class dream to settle in a foreign land. But happiness intervened. Before setting off to Switzerland, he thought of visiting his hometown and saw a human being eating his own waste for food under a bridge. What happened then?
“Krishnan founded his nonprofit Akshaya Trust in 2003. Now 29, he has served more than 1.2 million meals — breakfast, lunch and dinner — to India’s homeless and destitute, mostly elderly people abandoned by their families and often abused.”

“He seeks out the homeless under bridges and in the nooks and crannies between the city’s temples. The hot meals he delivers are simple, tasty vegetarian fare he personally prepares, packs and often hand-feeds to nearly 400 clients each day.

Krishnan carries a comb, scissors and razor and is trained in eight haircut styles that, along with a fresh shave, provide extra dignity to those he serves.”

What about his own parents and their aspirations? “Krishnan sleeps in Akshaya’s modest kitchen with his few co-workers. Since investing his entire savings of $2,500 in 2002, he has taken no salary and subsists with the help of his once-unsupportive parents.

“They had a lot of pain because they had spent a lot on my education,” he said. “I asked my mother, ‘Please come with me, see what I am doing.’ After coming back home, my mother said, ‘You feed all those people, the rest of the lifetime I am there, I will feed you.’ I’m living for Akshaya. My parents are taking care of me.”"

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What stands out in this young man was his pursuit to be happy. I don’t want to say the usual things that how inspiring this young man Dinesh Thakur is. How fortunate we are. If he can do this why can’t we? We don’t have to watch some disadvantaged person to feel if he can why can’t we.

While watching Dinesh Thakur performing in India’s Got Talent Khoj 2 it struck to me that happiness is a state of mind and he chooses to be happy. How dedicated this young man is to do what he wants to do in life. His determination and drive is remarkable. So called normal folks hardly exhibit it. It was pleasant to know he was associated with a Jym! Folks you know how hard it is to exercise everyday!

Although Dinesh Thakur didn’t win the India’s Got Talent Khoj 2 but in life he will keep on winning. With his determination, dedication and cheerful disposition, nothing seems impossible. He has got all the ingredients to move ahead in life.

Do we really need designer clothes, right accessories, hip hop places to get noticed? Its true all you need is your attitude.