As Aristotle say, “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” Every person wishes to lead a happy life, not even knowing what actual happiness is. Usually people believe that having material things like a big house and a nice car is happiness. They struggle in their present life just to reach happiness in the future, yet never manages to manifest that happiness. A common person starts his mature life by believing that happiness comes with earning a degree, or having the perfect job, in addition to marrying their soul mate, or even by having children, and even after achieving all of this, he/she yet doesn’t reach the true happiness he/she is looking for. This is how we spend our whole lives chasing happiness and eventually leave this life not appreciating or enjoying the blessings we have.
A human being’s brain is designed for survival and sustainability. Anything else is solely dependent on that person either to make his/her life happy and worth living or to live depressingly and eventually die. To achieve happiness, you must reset your life’s baseline. It won’t happen in a day or two, but it will take a continuous struggle until its set as a daily routine. There are several simple ways and daily tactics which are the key to one’s joy:

Be positive: A continuous struggle with negativity can never cause happiness. Positivity is the key of a happy life. Spend 1-2 minutes twice a day to think of the positive things around you for a month or two and you will start feeling happy automatically. 

Use positive mantra: Choose a positive mantra for yourself daily and repeat it to yourself again and again like “What a great day!”, “I am thankful and blessed for what I have” or “I love this season” etc.

Celebrate little moments: Life is a scene of happy and sad scenes. You have to face many ups and downs with many little victories which we ignore daily. Cherish those moments and make yourself happy. ‘WOO! I wake up on time’, ‘Yay! I completed my assignment’, ‘HMMM! That was a delicious meal’. Enjoy little things to make yourself joyful.

Meditation: Meditation helps a lot to keep yourself calm and happy. Give a little time to yourself and practice some body and mind exercises. You will not only feel happy and relaxed, but as your mind lightens up, you will discover and clearly see the many blissful tings in your life that makes you cheerful.

Do what you love to do: Don’t force something on yourself. It is difficult and stressful to do a job which you don’t like. Give sometime to yourself to look for what you like, focus on that career and do it with passion.
Live ‘The Moment’: Don’t waste your energy on thinking about the past or worrying about the future. Live and enjoy your present life. Focus on reality and your presence in that specific moment. Cherish it and be thankful for it.
Accept imperfections: No one is perfect in this world and no one can be. But still we continuously push ourselves harder and harder every day to be perfect in order to be happy. We must learn that it’s ok if your grades are lower than your colleagues, if you don’t make that much money, or even if you’re not that good looking!

Help others and be thankful: Sometimes you don’t feel victorious even after achieving your personal goals. It’s because as human beings, we’re social creatures that cannot live by ourselves. Survival and happiness are based on people around us. Helping others and contributing in their lives positively, will make us ultimately happy. 

So now, whose responsibility is it for you to be happy?

The author is a consultant in Public Relations and Personality Types. Instagram: @Tipsbyhalahill