“Tolerance” uncovers the magic wand of “Happiness”

Few years back, once my brother (whom I love the most and whatever I am is accredited to him) told me that he was trying to persuade my cute and deft nephew ( Hussain) that happiness is inside a person not outside . I was like what ?? How can the concept be interpreted by a 7 years old…. At that time I even didn’t understand aesthetically what he is actually trying to convey his son. (I thought he is always in a hurry to pass on his wisdom to his squad :))

Now I got it bro u were right ….

On this #mentalhealthday I wished desperately, there could be one day each month dedicated for the awareness of mental health, considering the severity of this issue. You surely would have seen the shocking statistics of increasing mental health problems around the globe. Being a mental health counsellor I’ ve witnessed every single person stressed, every second person depressed, every third person with one or the other form of anxiety ,every fourth I ve found with body pains without any physiological cause, and so on and on…

Do you know, surprisingly the solution for all these complex psychological problems do not need any rocket science, its just a matter of few simple behavioral changes one needs to incorporate.

I tried to develop a hierarchy as simple as I could to make it comprehendible, on the top of which stands the HAPPINESS.

“To be happy” means we should be free from stress….and this is not at all possible especially in this unpredictable societal milieu. Though we are “Ashraf Ul makhloqat” but not enough to selectively attend to environment. We do not have any semi permeable membrane in our senses to assimilate the only required flow of stimulus. We are prone to the environment so to stress. Stress is just like an independent variable staying all the time. It means we have to be happy amongst every kind of stress. We have to manipulate other variables.

Now the point lies not on ‘why this stress’ but on “way to attend the stress’. To avoid stressors and to cope up successfully we should have ‘Tolerance’- the missing factor in our lives. It will be odd if I start giving a lecture on tolerance. This is exactly the same concept of tolerance we used to study in syllabus mostly in Urdu and Islamiyat. Now is the just time to redefine it and reconstruct it in this era. I ve drawn some core tenants of tolerance based on the famous slogan of ” Geo or jeeny do” . Just imagine the vastness it encompasses.

For me tolerance is;

–to accept people as they are , not to make them acceptable for you

–to admire people who they are, not exercising to convert them for what you like

— to give unconditional positive regard to others, not calculating what they have given you

— to give ease and warmth to people around, not adding more obstacles

— to give space to every other person,  not contaminating their personal space

–to give a due credit to all those who needs to be accredited, not envying others

–to give importance to those who deserve

–to give rights to people which they owe

–to be satisfied on what you have not looking at others, what they have

— to mend your own character , not criticizing on what others possess

And last but not the least

–to give a warm smile to others without any expectation of receiving it back

in between these lines you will find everything that can give you “Satisfaction”. And a satisfied soul is a bliss- a source of happiness.

Hence, contentment leads to satisfaction which is a requisite for tolerance and which ultimately ends up with inner Happiness.

We just don’t need to search happiness in the environment , We don’t have to remove the stressor from the scenario but to accept them and don’t let them to hover around you for long. First try to avoid if you can, second try to escape if you can and finally try to face if you can as it is better solution. Don’t follow the happy time or odd time. Once we are happy from within we can make the time to follow us. So we just need to probe and stick to the happiness inside. A remarkable recovery in mental health will be visible.

May Allah help us in distributing ease and happiness around .(ameen)