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 ☺

have joy banish pain

I recently met a wonderful person who was suffering from immense physical pain. He had a few toes amputated due to progressive diabetes. He was also suffering from heart trouble and was in pretty bleak spirit. His family was with him, and they too were going through a trying time due to his illness.

I went to meet him at the hospital and found him extremely warm and approachable and at the same time a bit cynical of the purpose of my visit. I had never met him before, he is the father of a friend and I thought it would be nice of me to visit him and try and share some “Happiness” with him.

During the course of the conversation, I found out that he had been carrying a lot of emotional pain. He had unfinished family business and never forgave himself and one of his relatives for having cheated him out of his proper share of land and property. He was carrying a lot of bitterness and anger towards this particular relative. He blamed himself for having let his children down by not having ensured a secure future for them. He felt betrayed and cheated and wanted revenge.

Interestingly, according to Louise Hay- (author, motivational speaker, and healer) Diabetes is emotionally related to –longing for what might have been, a deep sorrow related to need for control leading to bitterness and anger. Heart ailments relate to issues with love and security.

When I heard about his ailments and I heard about his emotional issues I could immediately relate the two. Sure enough, his anger, his bitterness and his need to control and take revenge had to manifest physically and it surely did.

According to Paul Eckmen- researcher of emotions, anger is experienced when we feel someone is interfering with what we want. We experience an innate need to control the situation, we feel like attacking the source of our interference and sometimes we are successful in our attack and at others we are not. When we are not successful with the attack and are unable to achieve the desired result we tend to retain our anger and the mere mention of the object of our anger tends to lead to an increase in heart rate and an increase in the blood flow in our extremities, taking it away from the vital organs. This is due to the fight or flight response. Unmitigated anger over a long period will most definitely lead to physical ailments.

Uncle, was paying a huge price for carrying this anger. He was suffering both emotionally and physically. Only if he could put it aside, he would really start to heal. Often our anger and pain, becomes so much a part of our lives that we forget to live without it. Fortunately anger is a learned emotion; therefore it surely can be unlearned. When holding on to anger starts to threaten one’s own survival, it surely must be let go.

I know from experience the physical effects of guilt and anger. I was extremely angry and at the same time guilty of a certain episode in my life. At that time I used to suffer excruciating headaches and could hardly sleep. I looked older than my age and was constantly tired. I almost believed myself to be a manic depressive and was constantly looking out for signs that made me believe that I was suffering from Bi polar disorder. I just could not put the pain or the guilt aside. Eventually however, I did manage to overcome the emotional issues and before I knew it, I was sleeping like a baby and headaches were history. I took the whole drawer full of sleeping aids and headache pills (which I had collected like candy) and threw it in the bin. Of course it did not happen overnight; it was a slow process of acknowledging and accepting the situation. The giving up of the need to control the outcome by indulging in the right practices-namely yoga, meditation, reading spiritual literature and listening to uplifting music. I did everything I needed to do to get me out of this losing proposition. Wonderful friends who gave the right guidance were a god send. It took almost two years to give up the pills completely, but it happened and I can’t even remember what headaches and insomnia feels like. ( Am not complaining!!!!!!!!)

Is any pain worth holding on to the anger, bitterness and unforgiveness? Very often the object of our anger has moved on and is leading a happy fulfilling life, whereas we choose to suffer and wallow in self pity and self flagellation. Our body suffers and starts to retaliate, our friendships and our families suffer. Our work suffers and we are left with nothing but our anger and our hatred towards the world at large. Nothing seems to please us anymore. We forget joy and we forget happiness. Life becomes a burden and we can’t wait for it all to end.

Again, is it really worth it? We all have a purpose and a destiny and I sincerely doubt if it entails carrying pain, anger and bitterness. I recently watched the movie – Bucket List starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. In one of the scenes Morgan Freeman tells Jack Nicholson that it is an old Egyptian belief that when a person dies and his soul reaches the gates of heaven, the Gods ask two questions that determine if the soul will enter heaven or not. The two questions are “have you had joy in your life? Has your life brought joy to someone’s life?” It is as simple as that.

Have joy and bring joy. An angry, bitter person will never be able to enjoy life and his life will most certainly not bring joy. Happiness and joy are contagious as are pain and misery? What would you rather choose?

I don’t really know much about heaven and hell but why make our life on earth hell when we have the capability right within ourselves to make it into heaven. Why not choose happiness and attain heaven on earth?
Luv/luck/happiness