Misconception of the Spiritual Pursuit of Happiness

You've probably heard of the time when an ardent atheist or agnostic person receives news that he/she has terminal cancer and suddenly resorts to remembering God or are found reading the Bible in their hospital room. Why the sudden change?

Well, maybe because many such people, if not everyone, try to find comfort, relaxation, satisfaction, or happiness in believing that some greater force is out there that is going to take care of them, no matter what. Religion might mean something different for everyone, but usually, followers of any faith follow it because they find those characteristics listed above in their faiths, whether that faith is represented through idols, through the Trinity, through the Noble Eight Fold Path etc.

Yet, even in our spiritual pursuit of happiness, tensions exist. There has always been great tension between religions. Because of our relations with the Middle East and events around the Arab Spring, the crusade of this century seems to deal mostly with Islam.

Being a Muslim, I get asked many questions: To name a few recent ones - “How come you don’t wear the veil?”, “If you got a chance to go to Hajj, would you?”, “People who aren’t in your sect, do you believe they’re going to hell?”, “Do you pray 5 times a day?”

I’m not at all annoyed with these questions, especially since they’re asked by well-informed, nice and bright people. In fact, I love people who are curious, but I actually find it a bit funny that there is even a need to ask me such questions. Chances are that your answer to the question is probably what my religion teaches me too, because they're basically the same belief. Granted, specifics cause the nuanced differences, but I hope people grasp the overall big picture. Let’s just take one question for example, “How come you don’t wear the veil?”, a specific detail of the religion. I mean, I could tell you straight up, "No, I don't," but, again, let's also not forget the big picture. When I say "No," I don't undermine the emphasis of modesty, which is a key virtue in Islam, and in most religions I know (Nuns wear a veil, Many Jews wear the Yarmulke, etc.). Wearing the veil is one's choice; some might feel they're being modest with it, some might feel modest without it. But the virtue that religion teaches is modesty: that's the big picture that connects all of us, in this particular case.

I feel like sometimes, in the midst of small details of each religion, we forget that ALL faiths are literally the SAME. There is really no other way to put it. Each religion, especially the Abrahamic faiths, puts emphasis on the same values. The gist of any faith is to 1) remember God, 2) Live Morally, and 3) be happy and make others happy. No religion teaches any different than the gist above; the subtle nuisances categorize us and blind us from seeing the overarching unity of all faiths.

I'd argue that even if you categorize yourself as un-religious or atheist; if you lead your life morally, you're also very similar to me and other religious beings because leading an ethical life is, I believe, a way of remembering God's words, therefore, remembering God, in my opinion.

So why the constant tension....?

Being Thankful

Last week, Mr. Whipple left off on an interesting note. He told the class honestly that he, like the most of us, forgets to reflect on holidays we have off from school, like Veteran’s Day. Before Thanksgiving Break, he ended his class by saying that he was thankful for us, his students.

‘Tis a kind thought indeed. Thanksgiving is an important day to reflect all that we have and give thanks for the abundance we have in life. For me, Thanksgiving is also an important occasion to reflect how you yourself have impacted others. If, even for a second, you think that you haven’t influenced anything in this world, you are sadly mistaken, my friend, because your existence on this earth makes a difference. Think of your impact on your family, your friends, your community, and the Earth, and be thankful for it! Sometimes- a lot of the time- we tend to drown in life’s problems. We tend to thank God for all the wonderful things in our life, but we don’t appreciate and thank God for making us who we are today. Even if you’re not happy with who you are today, realizing your roles in life and the positive impact you’ve made on people and the Earth is a great way and being thankful that you could mark such a presence in people’s lives is a great way to bring positivity in your life.

In addition to being thankful for who I am, I am thankful for my intellect, my education, and ability to take action with it. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to learn about different literature and different issues freely and be able to take action in my community, therefore, make an impact on others. In class, we are reading Reading Lolita in Tehran , a story about Iranian women who secretly gather to discuss different banned literature. In some places, women don’t have the freedom and opportunities. The professor in the book has to organize these meetings in the house because the university forbids talking about such books. Realizing things we take for granted shines positivity in our lives and is a great way to remind ourselves all the things we have to be happy for.

The Immigrant’s Pursuit of Happiness

Immigration is the epitome of the Pursuit of Happiness. Immigrants leave their motherland behind to find a place of opportunity, a place of Happiness. But wait-Does immigrating to a place with freedom mean achieving Happiness?

In an English and Social Studies collaboration, the class watched an animated movie-based on the book- about life during the Iranian Revolution, called Persepolis. In the movie, due to the restriction of freedom of speech, the parents of a growing girl in Iran, Marjane, send her to Vienna, Italy after she gets in trouble for speaking against the biased curriculum taught in school. Her parents wanted a better life for their daughter and sent her to a place where she will be free to do whatever she wants.

Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?

Well, probably, it was, for a pair of helpless parents. While at a boarding school in Vienna, Marjane gets thrown out of a covenant for insulting the nuns and ends up moving to various houses. She meets a group of friends, and boys, who introduce her to the freedom and culture of smoking, drinking, clubbing and sleeping around. She has the freedom to say whatever she wants, she has the freedom to do whatever she wants without restriction. Yet, after a couple of years in Vienna, Marjane ends up on the streets. She is desperate to go back to Iran, and asks her parents never to question her about anything in Vienna.

Maybe an immigrant’s life in the U.S. doesn’t end up on the street, but many immigrants, especially first-generation, don't achieve satisfaction and feel a disconnection to the place they reside in. As I have witnessed myself, many immigrants long for their familiar culture, their traditional surroundings, and their relatives, yet they make another land their home and stay there for the better opportunities, which outweigh every other desire.

Both my parents are first-generation immigrants. They’ve well adapted themselves to American culture, but there is always this desire to go back where they’ve grown up, meet their friends, and delve back in the culture they were brought up in. They dislike the fast-paced culture in America, (not to mention all the other West-associated habits also). If they got a chance to go today, I’m sure they would love to go, even though they are surrounded by many friends and relatives of the same nationality here. I’ll often here them say, “It’s not the same.”

Nonetheless, they are thankful for the opportunities here and continue to live here. A land of freedom and opportunities is a type of happiness in itself, but, as I've seen it, there’s only a certain level of happiness they've achieved. They try to fill that longing with things like watching traditional movies or going to Devon Ave (Indian Area in Chicago).

Many people, like my parents, continue to stay in the places they have adapted to, but I found it interesting that Marjane did not find bliss in the West-in fact-she would have rather gone back to her oppressed country, than stay in Vienna.

Response to Blog Post: "Adversity and Optimism"

Reading through my classmates' blog, I stumbled upon a blog post that directly related to my previous post: Adversity and Optimism.

This blog compares the writer's first-hand experience in Africa by what the media often portrays as "Poor Africa". The following paragraph is my favorite:

"Africa has a much lengthier history than the United States or any other society, so it seems unfair that our media judges their standard of life as inadequate. Ghanaian people are happy because they have families to love, a faithful outlook on their existence, and a very different view on success. To succeed in America is to be the best, but in Ghana it is to be content and enjoy life. Many people in Ghana have to worry much more about the basic necessities, but everything happens with a much more relaxed and forgiving pace (which is excellent except when you're trying to get somewhere quickly in a tro-tro)."

I don't know about you, but I absolutely love the African definition of success: to be content and enjoy life. Imagine if that was our only goal! I probably wouldn't be striving for half the things in life right now if I wasn't also considering my "success" in the future. If every moment I lived just to be happy and not the best, I would be putting more effort into my and others' happiness as well.

If I ever go/move to Africa, my most important personal reason would be to live life where it is socially acceptable to live by the life goal to just be happy. But does that mean it's not possible to do that in America? Of course not!

We could prioritize our goals to where our happiness tops the list. While it is harder to do so, it can be done. The first step is to ask yourself what matters more: Your happiness or the rat-race to be number 1? If your happiness lies in being the best, then go for it! My happiness lies in that success as well, I mean, who doesn't feel great when they're the best? But, If I had a choice, I would spend more time and energy helping others, bettering myself, and relaxing.

Recently, I've been researching a lot of blogs about happiness. For my readers, I highly recommend The Positivity Blog. Every blog post gives tips and inspirations to lead your life with happiness. I love this website because it's not fake or generic. I've actually used the advice that this blog gives me and it has helped me to prioritize my happiness first as much as possible.

The concept of prioritizing our happiness probably sounds absurd to us. I know I've been in denial for quite some time thinking that I am happy, so that it's no more a concern of mine and I can actually focus on other things. But, I learned that if I consciously make the effort to try and put happiness first, as much as possible, then it actually works.

Try living life simply. Try to take out just one week, one day or even an hour everyday to just take care of yourself and do what will bring you happiness. See what happens, when you do some cleaning on your priority list. :)

Happiest Countries in the World

What are some of the first words that come to your mind when you think of Africa today?

I gave myself 10 seconds to think of the first words that come to my mind: Poverty, HIV/AIDS, Hunger, Tribal Diversity, Biodiversity, Animals, Violence, Homelessness, and Orphans. Out of 9 things that came to my mind, only 3 words were positive.

I genuinely tried to think of some positive aspects about Africa, but in those ten seconds, I couldn't. It's really depressing, but are you surprised? I'm not.

In English, the class discussed the role of newspaper of U.S. media in the perception of Africa this past week. We examined articles from the 50's/60's and modern-day news about Africa. Many of the students found that most of the American newspaper researched were sending out messages encouraging Westernization and portraying African Independence-seekers as rebellious and violent. Modern-Day Africa is basically portrayed as a problem-stricken country in newspapers today.

Interestingly enough, this week the class also learned about search engines and this 'bubble' that's created when searching from your personal computer. The idea of this 'bubble' was to create an algorithm that would filter searches and look at patterns in your searches in order to pull information most relevant to you. While intent is to get relevant information to you first, it has the potential of offering biased and one-sided information that we'd WANT to hear according to our preferences. Even if we'd like more information on the positive sides of Africa, there's a roadblock to more knowledge.

I think with the sole information I've receive about Africa in the U.S., I honestly can't imagine living in a place where I'd fear for my life everyday. I'm happier in the U.S. knowing that I have security of my life. But does that necessarily mean that Africans are unhappy or unhappier than I am?

Over the weekend, I tried to research lists and ranks of the happiest countries in the world. To my (un)surprise, Western Countries like Canada, U.S., Scandinavian Counties, and Australia are what ranked the highest on the first few google web page searches. After swifting through the pages (yes, there is more available than just the first 10 searches), I found that Nigeria was once ranked one of the happiest countries by BBC in 2003: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3157570.stm.

I tried to search more about what BBC had to offer about Nigeria, and found a publication of May2011 http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbc2011_entrepreneur/BBC_GlobeScan_Entrepreneur.pdf that shows a survey of Nigerians being satisfied with the entrepreneurship opportunities offered to them.

So maybe we don't have all the information to make judgements about Africa? Despite the problems in Africa, maybe people are happy?

Then I came across the HPI (Happy Planet Index). This organization came together to find a way to rank the happiest planets in the world, coming up with the following equation:

HPI = Happy Life Years

Ecological Footprint/Resources consumed

At first, an ecological footprint confused me as a a factor of happiness, but it can have an impact on your future. Happy Life Years is measured by a survey of Life Satisfaction multiplied by Life Expectancy.

This map shows a ranking of HPI scores in terms of the three categories. If all 3 categories are good or close to healthy, the country is marked green, whereas if 2 or more categories are poor, it is marked red.

WOW! Look at this result! The U.S. and Africa are both marked red! This was an interesting discovery. In terms of happiness and life satisfaction, U.S. ranked well, but in terms of ecological footprint, the future of happy lives in the U.S. is about as equally bad as a place like Africa, where everything but an ecological footprint is a problem.

Of course, ranking something subjective like happiness has its flaws, which even this organization offers as a disclaimer, but I found that this site did a pretty good job. I also learned that "more" doesn't always mean "happy" and that taking care of our resources also plays a huge role in our happiness.

I especially noticed this as I was reading the Poisonwood Bible, where Leah notices and in fact, envied the family who were laughing together and were so happy despite the problems in their life with living in poverty, losing 2 children, etc.

It is true that Africa has its own struggles and variety of problems, but it doesn't mean that they aren't happy. It also doesn't mean that they are happy. What I've learned is that I simply can not assume that since we, Americans, don't have the problems in Africa, we are happier than them.

In the Poisonwood Bible, Nelson tells Ruth May a secret of thinking of the safe place after death. In retrospect, this actually gives people comfort in dying than fearing their lives. While problems might seem extremely bad to us here in the U.S. and they really might be as bad as we understand them to be, Africans could be learning to cope as best as they can and still have a bit of positivity to get through life; in that respect, maybe as, or more, positivity than the U.S...

The Legend of Material Happiness

Last week, the world mourned the death of the CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs. Facebook Groups, Celebrity Tweets, and Status Updates, all were posted in remembrance of Steve Jobs.

Why?

You’re probably lookin’ at me funny, thinking “What do you mean ‘why?’ He was the C.E.O. of APPLE!”

Well, why is that such a big deal? You hardly know the guy!

And now it has probably hit you that I’m completely cuckoo crazy in the head, thinking, “…Because he’s the one who created my Ipod!”

Exactly.

We Americans, tend to be independent, and keep to ourselves. Each person is taught to be -- and lives with -- the strong value of self-reliance. Therefore, we tend to concern ourselves with things that concern us directly. At first, it was surprising to see so many people caring about the death of the person who made their phone. I mean, I’m pretty sure that such a big response from the global population would not be received if, god-forbid, the guy who made our sofa-died, or an equally strange baby in Africa died. I’m sure whomever hears of this news would feel sad, but wouldn’t go as far as they did to post their remorse as they did with Jobs.

We mourned as if Steve Jobs was a far-relative to us. Why?

Well, he didn’t treat us a whole lot differently than family; he gave us happiness in our lives. Granted, he takes money for his products, but his products still gives us comfort and happiness. For some, by the time this happiness became temporary, Jobs would have launched a new mind-boggling invention.

Realistically speaking, most middle-class Americans, like me, own probably an Iphone/ Ipod that’s updated maybe once in five years or more, which is not a bad deal. He changed my life and taught me how to best enjoy my spare moments in life, through an Ipod, which is a complete blessing. And I’m sure that’s the same way most people feel.

In some ways, I learned that humans are selfish; they only tend to care most about people who affect them, but I also learned that that means Steve Job did, indeed, play a pivotal role in making a direct impact in our lives.

Reading Poisonwood Bible, a book about an American family going on a mission trip to Congo during its independence movement, I thought of their lives in Africa. The Price Family lives in better conditions compared to most African families, but they still complain and miss all their things back home as they could only bring so much with them. Rachel spends her time loitering around in the house with nothing to do. She wishes she could go back home as she cannot find familiarity and comfort in the Congo. Likewise, we’ve become so dependent on our Iphones and Ipods, I don’t think we’d be able to live without it. We’d be UNHAPPY, like the Prices, without these material pleasures.

So, may God bless you, Steve Jobs. Your impact will never be forgotten. Thank you for giving us ways to enjoy our lives and bring us happiness. Thank you, God Bless, and Rest in Peace. And I hope you are returned with eternal happiness.

P.S. Please pull some strings, with your connections up there, to grant us a Happy App down here too. ;)

Happiness

Happiness: (n.) A seemingly simple concept.

Well, isn't it? We all want it. Everything we do, or try to do, is an effort to make us and our families happy in one way or the other.

We've all found ourselves being extra quiet, so our Kindergarten teacher could pick us first to choose the best chocolate from the plethora of candies. After we have finished running after our Driver's License, we've found ourselves drooling after the shimmering, sparkly, sports car. Right after we've finished running after a college degree, we've found ourselves running after that job that can possibly get us a better one. Why? Because it would make us happy./? (Choose your pick.)

We run our lives, for the most part. I think we can agree, that in America, we've been given the freedom to make whatever we want of our lives, to mold our ways of happiness, and to make our own choices about what we want to do in life. Yet, are we still 100% happy?

Granted, your answer might be yes. If that is the case, Kudos to you, my friend. My humble request to you is to please tell me who you are, and what you are doing in life. For those who are still trying to unravel this secret, I am in the same boat as you.

Allow me to introduce myself: I'm naïve years old. I hold a compass with four needles pointing to all four directions: "Wise", "Moral", "Fun" and "Faith". I'm trying to figure things out in life, but it's hard to know where to go with all four directions pulling me to it with equal intensity, making me everything but 100% happy. I'm trying to get these golden needles to turn 180° and point to the center that reads, "My Happiness." I may or may not be able to do this in my lifetime, but the most effective way for me learn to do that is to look at how others are trying to achieve their pursuit of happiness. I like looking at people's Psychology of Happiness: What are other people's idea of happiness? How do they make Happiness work for them? How are they working towards it or completely failing at it?

So, my friends, stay tuned in this potentially bumpy journey of finding and analyzing happiness. You just might unravel a secret you never knew.