Life will always be full of challenges. As young people none of us can deny that we faced a lot of challenges such as competition with peers and colleagues, stress and burden of workloads, sex antagonism, relationship issues in the family and friends, addicted to mobile phones and social media, pressures of materialism, laziness, lack of support, and most importantly fear, fear of not being able to study, fear of not finding a good job, fear of not being able to satisfy parents, fear of rejections, fear of relationships and fear of failures, etc and the list goes on. In spite of all these challenges, many are still living a happy life while there are more who are not happy with their own life and experience sorrows and sadness all the time, stressed and worries, despair and lonely. They considered life as a burden and are stressed where you don’t see any life at all in such people. With the rapid changes and development of this century, they are unable to face the challenges of life and as a result, they give up and lose focus.

Often we thought that people who have more wealth live a better and happy life than the poor. But, have we ever wondered what is the real reason and the difference between the young people who live a happy and youthful life and those of another who live a sad and life full of worries and tensions. While the problems and challenges are almost similar for young people, the former considered obstacles and problems as part of life, whereas the latter are more downward and withdrawn. They are just the opposite and considered life as a burden and thought that life is stressful for them to live. The fact remains that none of them understand that no one here on earth can avoid such challenges and obstacles in life.

Being poor or rich either does not have to do anything with living a happy and youthful life. I remember years ago when I was taken to the middle of a slum for an exposure. Just before entering the area I had a thought that the people who lived in there are very poor and experience all kinds of challenges that half of these have never met my journey of life. Few metres away from the main road, I saw children playing among themselves and I could see them using their full potential and freedom to play with so much noise and laughter. What caught my attention were the two children who look at the half broken mirror nailing on a big tree. Both of them pointed fingers to the broken mirror one after the other and laughed out loud with so much joy and happiness and at times holding their stomachs bending their whole body down while laughing. Probably, I thought the night before I slept that the two boys might have done something funny that day or somewhere at the time they saw their own faces, which might have looked funnier when they were standing in front of the mirror.  Anyway I thought that is normal because there were days that I too would look at the mirror and laugh at my own self for no reasons than seeing myself as a funny person and sometimes appreciated my own self for certain things and looks.

A few days later, I met a friend of mine who shared with me stories about his own girl friend along with several complaints and that she is very obsessed about her looks which does not make her happy at all. “She would always stand in front of a big mirror attached to her cupboard and use different varieties of cosmetics to make look better and better but never been satisfied of her appearance and with much worries she always complained about herself and her look which made her live a life full of worries and sadness when she compared herself with others”, he said. “Comparing yourself with others to seek self and positive improvement is wise, unless it costs you your own happiness and satisfaction”, I interrupted as if I wasn’t aware that many youngsters would fall for that kind of destructive obsession and comparison.

After our long conversation I remembered the incident of the half broken mirror and the two boys living in the slum. Such a luxurious life of the girl they can never afford in their life, I thought. Yet, what mesmerised me was their laughter and happiness looking at their own faces with no facial make up, while the girl in a full mirror was disheartened and couldn’t accept her own look. Happiness is not about being rich or poor. It is not about how much or how little you have. What makes the boys happy is not the half broken mirror, but their ability to accept who they are unlike the girl who had a big and expensive mirror but couldn’t accept her own reality.

Happiness is the road. You have to choose it and the first secret to this journey is to know yourself and accept who you are and your reality. Knowing yourself means to be aware of who you are what kind of a life you want and what kind of a person you want to be. When you accept yourself, it means that you know your own attributes and seek positive improvement through reflection rather than immediately react to the comparison you made with others.

The second thing that a wise man would do to make himself happy is to count the importance of his relationships with others and with God. An unhappy man can be seen through his struggle of loneliness and discomfort, both within his social group and within his family. To achieve happiness, a healthy relationship is needed starting with oneself, others and God. Communication is the key to achieve this. I remember the days when my younger brother and I hadn’t spoken to each other for several weeks because I’d beaten him. My gloomy days started then and it made me uncomfortable and unhappy until one day the inner strength which I believed comes from the Lord to whom I prayed, gave me the courage to apologise and seek forgiveness from him. The moment he replied, I was filled with a joyful spirit and danced to the tune of mercy. As I shared this with one of my friend through a phone call, he narrated a story he read in one of the newspapers that a 17 year old boy committed suicide because he failed in his matriculation exam. Unable to communicate this to his parents and thinking that they will reject him, he jumped from a high roof of the building. Had the boy communicated his situation to his parents and friends, I think they would not want him to lose his life ad they would’ve encouraged him to do well next time.

Communications makes it easier to understand and know each other, it makes it easier to live and work together, to forgive one another and to establish our personal bonding as brothers. Today, the rising trend of interactions takes place by means of images through computers and mobile phones. In fact, it seems that our efforts to establish and strengthen that personal relationship is much lesser than in the old childhood days where a family was able to spend time to sit and live together. Majority of us are trapped in this medium and it seems that sharing an image of a friend who celebrated birthday in our whatsapp status or facebook stories is more attractive and considered more importance than calling or meeting a person personally to wish him/her.

Ultimately the result we see is the personal bonds being shattered day by day. The lack of time for sharing, is one of the major reasons for the young people to be isolated and live with worries, despairs and fears. A wise and happy young man would always understand the importance of sincere care and find time in all his busy schedules to sit around with his family, meet friends, interact and share with others.

JIMMY PDANG