Happiness to Contentment.

Work harder, run faster, take interest in your job, love what you do, invest in future, your kids, save for retirement, go up in ranks. All this effort to achieve ‘happiness’.

Happiness, is not achievable. One has to accept it. True happiness, lasting more then 10 minutes does not exist. One can only make peace with the hardships he goes through. Embracing hardships, humbles us down.

Hazrat Yaqub (as) did not live a happy life. He lived a contended life. Dearest kid taken from him. Yaqub (as) waited for an eternity for Yousaf (as) to return. Went blind. He resorted to embracing the loss. Did not live a happy life, lived a contented life.

Hardships breaks us, humiliates our pride and make us humble. More hardships, more maturity, opportunity for more contented life opens. Some makes use of this opportunity and embraces the life as such. Those who do not embrace the reality, who keeps chasing the false perception of happiness, do not really get anything. Such people end up having more dissatisfaction.

Believing, happiness is just ahead of us. The next door we open, we enter into realm of happiness, is not possible. Around here, there is always another peak after this peak. Some thing to chase for after every glory. Chasing it whole heartedly, investing into it, compromising the Primary purpose of our life is a not a wise path to follow. May be we should stop chasing the “happiness” and embrace our life with all its defects.

What is in it for a believer?

A believer’s life turns around the moment he starts believing. His eyes do not see hardships as bad happenings. His eyes sees 4k HD Quality movie with pop corns in one hand and Quran in the other hand. He eats popcorns, holds tight to the Quran and enjoys the views. The more he enjoys, the more dearer he becomes to his creator. He is sitting in the cinema of life while rising high in ranks of Allah (swt).

Does this movie stop for a believer?

May be it does not. Who wants the movie to stop when one knows the reality; ’As soon as this movie ends, I will be feeling more contented then now. My creator will come to receive me the moment I exit this Cinema hall’.

But among them is he who says, "Our Lord, give us in this world [that which is] good and in the Hereafter [that which is] good and protect us from the punishment of the Fire."
- Surah Baqarah verse 201

Believers stayed humble to calamities. Embraced them and enjoyed every second of their lives. Fake believers, cried to calamities. Did not embrace hardships and kept running every second of their lives for “happiness”.

Solution to a depressed life..

Start with 5 prayers a day. As it gets easier and becomes part of our habit, take the next step on the ladder. And then next step. Slowly and gradually. When you feel your each day is better then the previous day, take the final step; ’Enter into Islam completely’.

O you who have believed, enter into Islam completely and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.
- Surah Baqarah verse 208

Defeat the enemy, defeat the false illusion of achieving a “happy life”. Have more fun falling, breaking and rising. If falling down is hard on us, we are in trouble…