Creating Happy Relationships for Joyful Life

The responses I received during my decade-long happiness research clearly established a strong correlation between amicable relations with our loved ones and joyful living. The absence of relations as well as unpleasant relationships are major causes of mental stress. If you are wealthy yet lack good relationships, would you be able to live joyfully? I think money can add pleasure to our life but without healthy relationships, we cannot have a joyful life. 

Let us reflect on what are the foundational pillars of a good relationship. We primarily form relationships with people with whom we share common values, common interests, common thoughts, and common purposes. But often we fail to give desired time and attention to these foundational pillars of healthy relationships in our personal, professional, and social life, which often causes the weakening of relationships. 

One year from now,  the taste of your relationships with your family, friends, and colleagues will change. It will either become sweet or salty, and that will depend on whether you add the nectar of love, compassion, and uplifting words; or the poison of jealousy, ego, and hurting words to your relationships during your interactions. 

Introspect on your important relationships and identify the factors why you formed those relations and how you strengthened them. Take time to strengthen the foundational pillars of your relationships, and keep adding the nectar of love, compassion, and uplifting words in all your interactions. 

And for all those relations gone sour, let me share a secret to turn them sweet as well. If lemonade becomes too salty or sour, we add sweet water to make it enjoyable. Similarly, keep adding the sweetness of love, sharing, and caring to your sour relations to turn them sweet over time - all this not to please anyone or impress others, but to live a joyful life yourself.  

The Happiness Equation: Happiness = R - E

The deep mysteries of life are often simple but difficult to navigate and put into action in our day-to-day life. The intent of JoyMantras is to serve as a reminder so we can continue to put our best effort towards creating a happier life. 

Today, I am sharing a simple definition of happiness in the form of an equation: Happiness = Reality - Expectations. The experience of happiness is an outcome of the relationship between the realities of life and our expectations from life. When the reality, life circumstances, or outcome of our efforts in life is greater than our expectations, we experience joy. On the flip side, if the reality we face in life or the results of our efforts are not as per our expectations, we experience unhappiness. Since we do not have control over our life circumstances and the outcome of our efforts is also not fully in our control, we only have two alternatives to live joyfully: First, have no expectations or set low expectations - which is often not practical in today's materialistic world; Second, accept the circumstances and reality faced in life with joy. We can not change reality but we can adjust our expectations to reality. Accepting circumstances in life AS IS and taking measures to continually improve the quality of our efforts is the best possibility for bridging the gap between expectations and reality.   

I hope this JoyMantra will come to your aid when circumstances of life are troubling you. Let us accept What is - as it is, and then make our way forward toward the intended outcome from this realization. 

Wishing you a joyful life. 

Project Happier 2023 - Attitude of Gratitude: JoyMantra by arunb

Namaskar. There is a famous proverb, "Action without wisdom is dangerous, and wisdom without action is of no use".  Many of us would have made a new year's resolution to bring a positive transformation in our life in 2023. But have you taken any positive actions so far to give life to your new year's resolutions, or are those resolutions once again suffocating because of procrastination? 

In the New Year JoyMantra, I shared an idea of the Happiness Project to make 2023 a happier year. Have you made your "Top-10  To Be Happier" list yet?  If not, no problem. I will share with you a simple idea that can have a huge impact on making 2023 a happier year. But you will have to put in sincere efforts and follow daily discipline to gain the benefits from this time-tested wisdom. You can include your family also part of this Happiness Project so that you can collaborate and keep inspiring each other. 

The idea for a happier 2023 is simple - An attitude of Gratitude. 

Please dedicate a designated time like after waking up, before dinner, or just before sleeping, to reflect on at least three situations or experiences of the day when you felt joy in your heart. Now offer your gratitude towards whoever was the cause of that joy. This can be a living being, anything else, or maybe divinity. This attitude of gratitude will also help you realize the prosperity in your life. If you take an additional step to make a phone call or send a message to express your gratitude, not only you will double your joy but also add joy to someone else's life. 

The attitude of gratitude is an evidence-based proven JoyMantra to make your life happier. The question is would you put sincere effort to bring this small change in your life? Because ideas don't work until you do the work. 

To begin with, I express my gratitude to you. It is because of the inspiration to share these JoyMantras with you that I also get to reflect on them once again. With those thoughts of gratitude towards you in my heart, this is Arun Bhardwaj, wishing you a happier 2023 - Namaskar.