Enjoying What Life Has to Offer

Nobody wants pain and suffering, and everyone wants to be happy. If ever there is really someone who would say the contrary, I bet he’s crazier than a madman. We all search for happiness, hence that search is naturally universal. Moreover, we seek for it in many different ways. Some of us look for it in physical pleasures while others find it in social comfort. Still others seek it in material things while the wiser ones find it almost everywhere. Some find joy in living, while some find it in dying. It is ironic though that the more we seek for it, the more that the yearning seems to grow more and more. In fact, to the scrupulous, that simple desire can become an obsessive craving. Nevertheless, this is but a natural tendency of man. Everything he does is geared towards the attainment of real joy.

Once there was a great coincidence when a pauper met a king along the road, and while the two were casually chatting, a sage and a moron arrived. The pauper said to the king; “I envy you, your majesty, what a happy life you must have? You are rich, famous and feared. A multitude moves as you command “. The king sighed and replied “That’s what you think o common man. The truth is, I envy you. You see, my actions are always numbered; I’m shackled to the royal protocols. Though I own all these lands your eyes can see, I could not even wander around by myself alone. You envy perhaps my palace, it’s but a prison to me, for while you may be living in a shanty, yet most of the time you’re free”, the king said down-heartedly. The moron then addressed the sage “Oh great scholar how happy your life must be? Imagine knowing almost all the wisdom of the world. Perhaps your foolishness if ever you still have, is still much greater than whatever intelligence I could ever claim. Now teach me great teacher”. The sage looked directly at the man and sadfully replied “My brother – lowly peasant, that’s what you may think of me. But, the wisdom you say, I call it a curse. Once I was as ignorant as you, but my heart was happier. But now that I have learned a lot, it made me proud and even more confused. For the more I learn about things, I also learn that I know less and less about them. Happy are you who have little knowledge, you have very little questions to wrestle with”.

The four men then finally realized that no one among them has the monopoly of happiness, and that all four of them are all seekers of that elusive joy. They sought for happiness in their different perspectives yet they hardly get to it in any way. For this, they also learned that happiness lies not in anything people value more, but rather in the way they share it with others. Joy however small it is; is maximized when shared with others. More importantly, happiness can be best attained in contentment or in being satisfied with the simplicity of what is present. The more people crave for things beyond their reach, the more despair they just encounter. But the more they accept their own limitations, as well as that of every situation that people find themselves in, the more that they tend to be happier.

In a much clearer way, life is all, but challenges. And foremost among them is the challenge of being happy amidst such numerous challenges. Time and again, countless number of people proved that happiness is attained not in the avoidance of such challenges. But rather, in the way people ride along such challenges with firm spirit, vigor and serenity. It is not in the failures they meet along the way that they encounter unhappiness. On the contrary, it is in their ability to accept failures that make them devastated. For most of people, failing is just unacceptable and sad to say, it is what makes things worse. For one thing, being happy demands that man should also learn to be unhappy from time to time, and enjoy anything this life has to offer, even in the smallest thing he encounters.