Contentment - Path to Happiness.

Contentment with whatever you have is the greatest path to happiness. Comparison with those better than us makes us discontented. Comparison with those who are worse off makes us proud and arrogant. Shanti or a peaceful, calm mind, suffused with affection and compassion, makes our field a happy one while spreading like a fragrance to embrace all those around us. Everyone has only two choices—life-enhancing and lifedestroying. An event is not as critical as is your reaction or perception of it. It continues its life inside you, a nuclear landmine of memories that wreak far more destruction than the actual event. The more mindspace you allocate to unhappy memories, the more time you spend in the past while being a spectator in the living present, the more you miss the joy the present moment offers. At any given time, the past should not inhabit more than five per cent of your mindspace, and the future should not exceed ten per cent. Did you know that human beings are the only creatures who can think about the future? This ability should be devoted to a rational planning exercise, not aimless daydreaming that nibbles at your day like a rat in a godown of rice. We have a choice to look at failure and loss as a life-lesson, or to carry it with us till we are bent over with their crippling burden. They make us tired and discouraged to handle the opportunities of the present. They echo in our mindspace in a tone that is vicious, critical, chipping away at our resolve to do battle for progress. We need to change the way we talk to and treat ourselves. All of us need a tender, loving caretaker within who nurtures us, not an internal drillmaster who victimises us in an insulting and disparaging tone, sucking out all our energy, enthusiasm and happiness.