You can’t be happy while choosing to remain unhappy about Life

Happiness does not need conditions to be met for it to flower within you. It just requires you to stop complaining about Life and stop being unhappy.

ANR - Picture Courtesy G.Ramakrishna, The Hindu

A couple of days back, The Hindu reports from Hyderabad, famous Telugu actor and thespian, Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR), called for a media conference on the sets of his forthcoming Telugu film, Manam. The entire Akkineni family comprising stars of three generations, including Nagarjuna, Amala, Nagachaitanya, Supriya, Sushant and his mother Susheela, were present alongside ANR. But only ANR spoke. He informed the shell-shocked media gathering that he was diagnosed with cancer. He said that his decision to go public with his condition was taken because somehow extended family and friends had got wind of his ailment! Soon people started calling him, making enquiries out of concern naturally. “But I don’t want to be reminded of it. I have lived my Life to the fullest and will continue to do so…the best way of looking at Life is with a smile….In cinema of yester-years, we have dramatized cancer and associated it with death. However, that is not the case now. Many people are wishing I will live to be a 100 years. With a lot of cheer, I hope to do so,” said ANR, now 90. ANR, who has already had an unparalleled 71-year career in films, having acted in 280 of them, said he hopes to continue to choose good roles that befit him. His family said that they had been advised by him to stop brooding, or wear sullen looks, over his illness and to create an atmosphere of happiness and cheer around him!

ANR’s spirit is both unputdownable and inspiring. This is the way to be happy. Which is to just be in acceptance of whatever is happening to you and to remove all those conditions that make you unhappy.

But many people don’t get this simple way. They only want to be happy. But refuse to simply be. It is like someone who goes to a doctor and wants to become well and healthy. But what if the person takes the prescription and refuses to take the medicines? How can his or her health improve? It is so simple. If you have been living in a way which has made you feel miserable, to feel different, to be happy, you have to stop living the old way. You can’t be happy while choosing to remain unhappy about Life.

ANR’s situation is a cancer. To be sure, each of us has a different situation or circumstance to deal with. But all of us can be happy despite our circumstances if we choose to accept the Life that is happening to us now and stop being unhappy about it!