Being a Nobody

Being a Nobody!

I have accomplished nothing, I have not given the world anything to remember me for, I have not created anything major nor destroyed anything . I am a nobody
As I sat by the sea contemplating on these questions, I felt really small and insignificant.

I thought to myself, does my life have no meaning? What is my role in this cosmic creation? Why was I even born? Am I just a biological accident or is there a deeper meaning to my birth?

As I kept contemplating on the above questions, it dawned on me….. what if had no purpose? Could I be at peace with myself, just in the knowing that I exist and just because I exist my world exists. I am an intrinsic part of this creation, so every thought that I think and every word that I speak and every move I make, adds or detracts from the cosmic consciousness.

Instead of constantly focusing on doing something, could I just be happy in being me? What if just by virtue of being born I have fulfilled a divine purpose and that purpose is to be in joy and happiness and if I am happy and in joy I have in some way contributed to the happiness of this world?

As I got deeper and deeper into this thinking, I really felt a sense of peace and calm. Could my purpose be that simple?

I remember reading a beautiful story in which it was mentioned that when the soul leaves the body and is ready for transition, the gods appear and ask just two simple questions. “ Have you had joy in your life and has your life brought joy to someone’s life? “ If you answer these two questions in affirmative, you have achieved your life’s purpose.

So, could I just focus on being a happy me and ensuring that every day I made at least one person happy?

This is not a lofty goal and I thought it was pretty easy.

I embarked on my journey but was very quickly stopped in my tracks as I realized that I had still not understood the meaning of happiness. I still believed that happiness was something that I had to find. My past experience had shown me that happiness came in the form of fulfillment of desires. But every desire fulfilled made room for new desires to take their place ☺. This was an endless journey, with no real end or happiness

Then of course came the reality check- My husband and daughter told me how I claimed to be a Chief Happiness Officer but in reality I was a Chief Misery Officer by wanting them to behave and act in ways that made me happy. I was failing miserably in bringing joy to myself and to the people around me.

This was the start of my understanding of happiness. I started reading all I could on happiness and was very quickly led to positive psychology, spirituality, philosophy and psychology. The underlying aim of all was to help humans lead more fulfilling lives. Different approaches but the end was always the same. A year into the studies and I thought I pretty much knew how to spread happiness.

In jest I started calling myself Chief Happiness Officer and little did I realize that just by calling myself and believing that my job was to spread happiness I had in some way managed to make inroads into my desired goal.

I made a pledge to myself that my goal in life would be to ensure that every person I met, I would in some way or another try and add to their feel good factor.

I did not realize at that time, that by making other people feel good I was actually raising my own happiness levels. Every time I did something nice or said something nice to another person, I got back 10 fold. I had never really bought into the hostile universe theory, but neither did I believe that all that happened, happened for the best. I still had many unanswered questions and enough people who I believed were responsible for my happiness!

As I kept going further with my belief and studying all about the law of attraction, I kept getting more and more convinced that we get back in life exactly what we give out and more.

After all we do live in a connected universe, where every thought, act and deed has a compound effect on our own well being.

Happiness is no rocket science, it is something we have all experienced and deep down we all know that happiness does not come from things, jobs, spouses, children, money, name or fame. In our misunderstanding of what happiness is we all keep trying to pursue and change the above. Because many of us –including myself have never been taught the real meaning of happiness, we all equate joy and happiness to achievements and laurels. We live in a society that applauds the outliers. There is no room for mediocrity. From a very young age we are conditioned into believing that it’s not OK to be a nobody.

Have you ever picked up a book that says, its OK to be average? Have you ever been patted on the back for being you? Have you ever jumped with excitement and joy when your child came at the bottom of the class? Have you ever dreamed of just being a nice person, living in a simple house with the bare minimum? Have you ever aspired to be one of the crowd?

I doubt it? I haven’t !!!!!!!

We all grow up, believing that we have to achieve lofty goals in order to be acknowledged. Just being me is not good enough. I need to achieve something that will make people take notice of me. We all read biographies of people like, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Martin Luther King, Churchill, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, and various others who have left a mark and always find ourselves paling in comparison. What we fail to realize is that all people who achieved something did so because they really believed in what they were doing. Also we don’t see the dark side of their lives and believe that just because they have name, fame and money, they must be happy. The evidence suggests that this is not entirely true.

We forget that our purpose is to live in joy and happiness. We become miserable in pursuit of happiness. Joy and happiness is really our natural state and every time we are feeling miserable we are not in our natural state.

If you think about it very carefully and ask yourself, what really does make you happy? You WILL get the answer, but our conditioning does not allow us to hear that answer because that is not what will give us acknowledgement and reverence.

Contemplating on these questions, I decided that it was really OK to be nobody as long as I was happy.

Only I know what my definition of happiness is! I may not be living up to someone else’s definition of happiness but I surely am living up to mine.

By living in happiness, I am contributing to the mass happiness of this planet. We are all manifestations of one source and by experiencing a certain emotion I am contributing that emotion to the cosmic whole. After all we can only give what we have. How can I ever make another person happy if I am not happy myself and how can I ever expect to be happy if people around me are unhappy.

For very selfish reasons, become happy and make sure that people around you are happy and take joy in the fact that its OK to be a nobody as long as you are happy.

To much happiness and joy and being a nobody ☺