Maxims of Happiness

My best friend Rohit is younger than I am. Which isn’t a problem now, but back in high school caused him to be rather removed from all of the drama. If you were party to drama in high school, then you most certainly missed on finding and using these “keys”. He did not, and was able to summarize them. Imagine if, back in high school, you lived by this? I bet your lives would have been better.

But drama isn’t restricted to high school, and these keys are still good. So clip them onto your keychains if you’d like: I know I have.

Rohit Kumar’s Keys to [Happy] Sentient Existence

1. Laughter. Laugh it off. Smile if you can’t. And for the positive things, laughter is even proper.

2. Take everything in stride. Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see. Refer to the first key otherwise. Hope is a good thing, but false hope is how you get hurt and unhappy. It’s important to be realistic, and to take it in stride when hopes fall through.

3. Don’t get caught up in the webs. Unless its too late, in which case, don’t let yourself become just another node. Social and dramatic webs are a horrible way of getting caught up in things. So take a step back, look at things from afar, and recall keys 1 and 2.

4. Love thyself. Because you are most important, and if you don’t bother with yourself, few others will. Not too much, of course, but don’t put yourself into the dumps: there are others who will try to do that and there is no good reason to help them.

5. Be optimistic. Because even when everything is going wrong, someone else has, or had everything going worse. This is a balance to key 2: It is important to not get caught up, but not to be too distant.

In summary, be aware. Of yourself and of others, of repercussions and of possibilities, of the past and of the future. Especially when things look grim, taking a step outside of yourself is a great way to get back into yourself. I know I forget to do that too often, so hopefully sharing it with others will make me remember.