Thu, 28 Mar, 2024

Prioritize Happiness and Lead, Not Follow

By Kundan Shumsher Rana

People live their lives in search of something they want. Some people want wealth, opulence, riches while others want to live their lives in peace. There are also those who want nothing but happiness, and they are fine with wherever they are and whatever they have. These types of people are not freeloaders or bums. They are just normal members of society who do not follow trends or go after the targets set by others. They are the trend-setters; they are the ones who set goals for others to follow. These types of people aren't hungry for anything but they are not ever satisfied and are always curious.

There is a saying, “To get something, you must sacrifice something”. This is famous saying that people all over the world know and strongly believe in. It tells that you cannot have everything. When you sacrifice something important, only then you will gain something of equal value. Our lives are a constant series of scarifies and gains. We sacrifice something important on every step of the way to our dreams. It could be sacrifice of sleep, socialization, health, money or any other tangible thing. There are also intangible things that are sometimes sacrificed, like personal happiness, personal growth, seeing the smiles of loved ones, a feeling of excitement and anticipation. Most importantly, we sometimes sacrifice our dreams to gain something that we do not want.

There is another famous saying, “In today's world, we buy things we don't need, with money that we don't have, to impress people we don't like.” This is a sad thing but it is true. Like I mentioned above, people who want wealth, opulence and riches forget about what it feels like to be truly happy and only focus on temporary and meaningless pleasure. People like these are always left with a feeling of guilt, emptiness and sadness till they find a way to live with it. By then, their heart is void and their eyes lose the sparkle that they once probably had when they were just starting out and working happily towards their dreams. Isn't it a weird irony that the dreams we want to accomplish so that we can be happy ends up being the very thing that makes us miserable. We try to meet others that have not gone through the same change in their hearts like we have. Everywhere we look there are zombies that are after things that are unimportant, unnecessary and meaningless.

But all is not lost for there are also people who want nothing but happiness and will not sacrifice something important for something meaningless. These are the types of people whose voice never shakes, whose feet stay on the ground while their eyes sparkle while aiming for the moon. These are the people who sleep with a smile and wake up with a purpose other than money. They are the trend setters, the ones who build their own dream, who do not follow the herd but lead it. This situation also has a similar saying, “For I have walked the road less traveled and that has made all the difference.” These are the people who sacrifice something important not for something else, but they sacrifice so that they can get it back later when the time is right.

People need to understand something. Neither the world controls us, nor do we control the world. We are free to be anything. Many of us misinterpret that and focus on being something that we are not. We follow things that society tells us to do and believe me, society runs in a loop. We do not need to follow that loop. We can create an exception and create our own path to go in another way, a way that leads towards self satisfaction, happiness and peace.