For the past few months, my life was miserable, sad, and depressing. Honestly, I didn’t know what was causing that, I just put the blame on work, school, and economical changes. As funny as it sounds I don’t why I was really blaming inflation for my life problems but I just wanted something or someone to blame because I didn’t want to face the actual problem. During this week I was in class and my lecturer, who was lecturing us about life, asked the class one question to deeply think about. He asked us if we are living a happy life, and out of nowhere he pointed at me and said: “What about you, are you living a happy life?” I immediately said yes! He then looked at me and said “Are you sure” I hesitantly said yes, he looked at me deeply and then turned to the whole class, and said “If you still hesitantly answer to this question, you are not living a happy life” he then turned to me again and said, “I am giving you an assignment. Do self-evaluation and learn about what’s stopping you from living a happy life, the answer is in you not outside”. Many people like me have so many things that stop us from living a happy life and being happy, things like needing approval from others, expecting a lot from life, and not just living freely and peacefully. Marcel Kwizera, an author, says that we often pursue the wrong things believing that they are the key to happiness, which end up making us miserable and unhappy. “The saying that goes “we only live once” tricks us into believing that materialistic things bring happiness, we believe that if we create memories, laugh, make people happy, and be responsible for their happiness will let us live a happy life. But that is blinding because happiness is simple, it doesn’t come from extra things, and it only comes within you,” he says. Kwizera suggests looking within and understanding what those unnecessary things are. We usually give time and space to things that make us feel unhappy, the things that our heart and mind usually tell us that are not worth it, and that’s when we will learn about the secret of living a happy life. Alaine Isimbi, an art director, explains that living off expectations can lead to an unhappy life. “Expecting that things should go well all the time, or that life should always favor you can sometimes cause a person to feel unhappy because they always want to see things going accordingly because of expecting much from life and yet life is not predictable,” she says. Isimbi stresses that our happiness is where our values are, the things that we do that make us feel alive are what makes us happy, the things that we want to do, and the things that our heart wants to do are what is supposed to make us happy. “Mahatma Gandhi once said “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony”, so the more of what we think, what we do daily, and what we say always complement each other the happier we will be,” she says. Nadine Ineza, a bank teller, says that another secret to living happily is to celebrate yourself and the little victories. “Although life is full of ups and downs, in between there are good things happening. Don’t just lament about the bad things happening but celebrate each small victory you make, remind yourself that nothing in life will always be perfect but the lemons that life gives us we should always find ways to turn them into juice,” she says. Living a happy life does not equal having a lot of success, or achievements, the happiness we want is within us and when we give people or anything else to control how we should be happy, we end up living an unhappy life.
