On the Path of Winners
By Bayo Ogunmupe
How to gain happiness
PEOPLE
say they want to be happy, yet real happiness seems an impossible dream.
Everyone reaches for it so desperately but for many, it never seems to come any
closer. What are we doing wrong? Is it the times we live in?
Well, it isn’t as bad as it seems. There are
many people having a wonderful time with their lives. They are living to the
maximum and love every minute of it. But they don’t talk much of it, they are
busy enjoying themselves. They don’t usually write articles about their state
of well-being. Not many people have that zest for daily living. Too few people
have mastered the art of being happy!
But do you think happiness can be learned like
dancing or pottery? I don’t think so. I think you are either happy or you are
not. You can’t decide to be happy. You can go after the things you hope will
make you happy. You expect happiness to happen to you. Firstly, you have to
realize you have probably been looking for happiness in he wrong place.
The source of happiness is not outside of
you, it is within. Most of us have not begun to tap our potential. And we will
continue to sell ourselves short as long as we are looking for someone to give
us the key to the kingdom of happiness.
We must realize that the kingdom is already
in us, we have the key already. We are accountable only to ourselves for what
happens to us in our lives. You must realize that you have a choice, you are
responsible for your own good time. It is as if we can push a magic switch and
turn on happiness. But there is no magic switch. Only there is an attitude. To
take responsibility for our lives means making a profound change in the way we
approach everything. We even talk about our own feelings as if they were visitors
from outer space. We say, “this feeling came over me,” as if we were helpless
creatures overwhelmed by mysterious forces, instead of simply saying, “I feel
that way.” We speak as if our feelings change from sunny to stormy like the
weather, over which we have no control. This meteorological view of reality is
very useful. It takes us off the hook for the way we feel. We diminish
ourselves just in order to push away the chance of choice.
Indeed, you have to make the decision to lift
yourself up or put yourself down. People worry about pollution. But the harm we
do to ourselves is a lot more dangerous than the damage we do to the
environment. We don’t need television to pollute our minds, we do a much more
efficient job of it ourselves.
Of course, there are many people who see
nothing but their bright spots. But they don’t really believe it. But how great
are those who are working that hard to convince themselves and others that they
are perfect? They do so because they think their choice is between being perfect
and being the worst thing that ever lived. However, you must see the ways you
are pulling yourself down and decide that isn’t what you want to do. Then you
can start doing the things that give you pride and pleasure in living.
Those things that give us the pleasure of
living includes being aware of our own achievements. When you do something you
are proud of, dwell on it a little, praise yourself for it, relish the
experience. We are not used to doing that. When things go wrong, they call our
attention. When things run well, we must actively bring them to our attention.
Don’t wait for notice to come from others. When you compliment yourself, the
glow stays with you permanently. These are the factors of happiness.
Our champion for today is Octavio Paz, the
Mexican poet, writer, diplomat and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for
1990. Born in Mexico City in March 1914, he died in April 1998. Paz’s family
was financially ruined by the Mexican civil war, thus he grew up in straitened
circumstances.
Paz published his first book, Forest Moon in
1933. In 1937, he visited Spain where he identified with the Republican cause
in the Spanish Civil War. His experience of those events: Beneath Your Clear
Shadow and Other Poems, was published in Spain in 1937. The book revealed him
as a writer of promise.
In Mexico, Paz founded and edited several
literary reviews including ‘Workshop’ from 1938 to 1941 and ‘The Prodigal Son’
– which he co-founded in 1943. His major poetic publications included, They
shall not pass; Freedom Under Parole, (1951); Eagle or Sun, (1957); The Sun
Stone. In the same period he produced prose volumes of essays and literary
criticism including “The Labyrinths of Solitude (1950) an influential essay in
which he analyses the character, history and culture of Mexico and the Bow and
the Lyre (1956); The Pears of the Elm (1957).
Then, Paz entered Mexico’s diplomatic service
in 1945. Serving in a variety of assignments, he was Mexico’s ambassador to
India from 1962 to 1968. In the latter year, Paz resigned in protest over
Mexico’s treatment of student radicals. In his later years from the 1970s, Paz
edited Plural magazine, a review of literature and politics, Paz’s later works
are suffused with his understanding of Indian-American myths and discussions of
world’s cultural attitudes. He wrote books on international politics with
emphasis on the relationships between the United States and Latin America.
Paz was influenced by Marxism, Surrealism,
Existentialism and Buddhism. In the poetry of his maturity, he used a rich flow
of surrealistic imagery in dealing with metaphysical questions. As one critic
said he explores the zones of modern culture outside the market place and his
most prominent theme was the human ability to overcome existential solitude
through erotic love and artistic creativity. In addition to the Nobel Prize,
Paz received the Cervantes Prize – the most prestigious Spanish language
accolade. His Complete Works were published in 1994.
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