Of the smiles along the way

What it is about the sunrises and sunsets that instills so much calm? So much so that all your problems melt away into nothingness. So much so that you feel like it's God's way of telling you that there is more to the life he has given us than the problem gnawing at our existence. What is it about the smile on a baby's face as he sleeps that makes you break into a one too? That brings back the innocence we have lost somewhere in the humdrum of our life. What it is about a loving gesture from a loved one that is enough to see our day through? That it seems like a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak scenario. That it gives you so much strength that you can take all of life's battles head on. Why are little things like these such an integral part of our happiness?

Look for it and it can't be found anywhere, but get involved in something, and you can often catch it peeking from behind the curtains. In the beauty of a flower, in the innocence of a child, in the smile of a person for whom you've come as a divine intervention.

Yes we are responsible for our own happiness. No one can give us that. We have to see it in the most myriad of things. Those cues are the absolute lifelines. We can't help but depend on those. No matter how much we claim that our happiness doesn't depend on anyone, it does. We are all so interconnected. We aren't that mechanized yet that the presence or absence of people we deem important makes no difference to us. We expect them to be rock steady and we expect their unending love and support. Somewhere our happiness is linked to them. If that is not the case then it should not hurt when they leave. If that is not the case, then when something exciting happens to us, they shouldn't be the first one's we want to break it to. If that is not the case, they should not be the ones we want to turn to for council when we seem to have lost our way. If that is not the case, then even when we have everything we always wanted from life, we ought not to yearn for them.And if that is not the case, their sadness should not affect us so much. I guess that drives home the point.

They say you don't get everything in life. Fair enough. You gain some, you loose plenty. And even if we don't have everything we always wanted, we learn to find our happiness in whatever life dumps us with. The thing with living in a society is, that society thinks they have the right to decide for us. It gets engrained in our being so much that anything away from the stereotypical is not supposed to be good for us. Why do we feel safe being a part of the herd? Why must we be conformists in every sphere of our life. Be it as silly as a choice of hairstyle to the graver choice of career.

A little more acceptance should do the trick. Accepting people as they are, with the package they come bundled with. And appreciating them for the little things that make us smile every time we remember them.