Finding It Hard To Be Happy.

[superduper]

I feel a sense of guilt whenever I think of my parents because I have failed to live up to their expectations. Their expectations have been pretty reasonable but I just cannot meet them. Its my fault, 95% of people could have been able to do this but not me. My mother was ill for years when I was younger and this placed a massive strain on everyone. Now that I am older I feel it is my duty to make them happy but I cannot. I am stuck in a job I hate, I feel that nothing whatsoever is going for me. My brother doesn’t care, he does whatever he wants to do without caring about the consequences. Its up to me to try to make them happy but I am failing and I feel so sad because of this. I’ve lost touch with all the friends I used to have, most of them are now married and busy with their own lives, so I cannot talk to anyone about how I feel.

I used to find some peace in going to the Gurdwara but not any more. What should I do? I see other people married, good jobs, good health and their family is happy, why can’t that happen to my family?

[S1ngh]

You are very mature and you care for others and this should not make you feel sad but happy. Your soul wants to take care of people around you but at the same time maya (in many forms) want you to be careless. Taking care of parents and others in need is considered to be a very noble deed in Sikhi. Do not keep any kind of guilt of missing out things such as friends when you are taking care of your family. Friends come and go but parents and family members always stick together. Keep yourself in positive energy... Think, Speak, Hear, Talk only positive while brush negativity away from your mind. Negativity and "what if.." only pollutes your mind.

Don't force yourself to keep others happy. It is not your job to keep them happy BUT at the same time you also should not expect them to praise you for the noble work you did or doing to them. Whatever you do, just keep in mind that it is Waheguru ji who is doing it thru ur body. It also seems like you are under heavy stress... Take a vacation, do things that you like to do.. give urself a break.. If you don't like your job or career then see what other options you have..

I see other people married, good jobs, good health and their family is happy, why can't that happen to my family?

Believe me bruh... every household.. no matter how good they look outside or how rich they are... all of them have problems. Nobody can settle that easily and no-one will find any peace if they do not have rab ji (god) in their mind. Gurbani clearly states and stresses on this dozen times that no matter what you do.. you won't find peace unless you read bani and lead practical khalsa life.

Wish you good luck my friend and hope guru jee do kirpa on you

[SunSingh]

You need to take care of yourself. Take care of your own goals and interests, you can't be beholden to others for your whole life. Don't let life pass you by. Make your own expectations for your own life. And let go of your parents expectations. They are your parents in this one life only. The Guru's expectations for you are far more important, as are your own expectations for you. There seems to be no point in carrying the unnecessary burden of your parents' expectations as well. If you follow your dreams and become happy, it makes sense that they would be happy for you as well.

At the same time, it is praiseworthy to take care of your parents. While every son has some duties towards their parents, you are not required to make them happy. Happiness is in their minds and so is their job.

Also, pray to Guru ji for chardi kala everyday.

[Wales85]

I can relate man. Just remember that you always have options. I was in the same state a few years ago... I had a good paying finance job but I hated it... started taking science classes... everyone thought I was crazy... now I am gonna be a doctor. Whole time I was doing it people were giving me hell... now they just keep their mouth shut.

Find out what you want to do and do it. If your not happy with your job change it. Don't let other people make you feel trapped.

I can really relate to how you feel. If you ever wanna talk just shoot me a PM.

-W

[humkire]

hey my dear sis?bro?. I have just read what you wrote very carefully and thoroughly.

Its cool. We all have problems that 'kill', diminish our worth,reduce our power, and make us feel absolutely hopeless without inspiration and direction and totally lost, confused, trubled, antisocial and fed up, exhausted and unhappy and sad. I am going be 52 this year and i can tell you from my life, this matrix(world) can suffocate. Sometimes all of life can feel like 1 huge massive punishment. Sometimes God seems to not exist, not hearing, not helping, not wanting to help or even non existing. You can even feel like giving up and committing suicide.

But deep inside you, you know there could be another way. If not you would have given up by now and wouldnt even have posted what you wrote of your troubled life. Thats the still small voice of God within, making you wake up and come to a forum like this where many blessed Sikhs who are close to God, who have gone through experiences like you but have found a new way, visit, help and share. . Guru Granth Sahib says(page 1267) that as a person gives up on their own little wasted efforts, and hopelessly starts surrendering to God, somehow saints come his/her way to become his friend and help him out and shower him/her with grace and great help. This is why really you are here. This site is where you will help a lot of help and ideas from different sikhs reading your post, that much I can assure you. Your surrender to God(even though you may have done it unknowingly as you started losing hope) has brought you to the right place. So stay on here , read various replies others are going to make and act on all the golden words of wisdom you will read as people read your words and try to sort you out in every way. you can pm whoever you seem to like, in private too.

There are 6 billion people or more on this planet and billions who have lived before. You are not the only one who has been smelling the bad coffee. But not everyone ends up as a failure. That choice is yours. The deciding factor is a little thing called hope. Some people just end up giving up and dying slowly or fast. Others latch on to this thing called hope and somehow slowly slowly crawl back out of a real bad situation or existence. Hpe is a gift of God and as I am replying, I can feel that yes you have hope in you. If not you would have never posted to start .

You need to grab that hope that is in you. That is God in you. God is hope and hope is God. Use this power within, to fight back for once that 'demon' that has been strangulating your neck. You can do it. You need to make hope, i.e God your best friend and you can be helped out. Who knows how fast. Sometimes things can start moving really fast but just stay patient as things move for you and your family.

With the voice of God in you urging you to seek help , giving you lovely Sikh friends here with similar past experiences like yours, and with that same God manifesting as hope within you, you can start to think of some new directions to take in your life, setting up short and long term goals, working on them, and eventually a seismic shift will occur in your life, no doubt about that, take my word.

Start doing your prayers, start going to gurudwara more often and God will speak to you through new thoughts and manifest Himself to help you through new friends. Start doing simran , chant God's name, start listening to kirtan and lectures by great Sikhs. Start reading books about Sikhism and a new way of looking at life will slowly help you change your philosophy, outlook and mindset about life.

This world operates on change. Everything is in some sort of a cosmic dance that keeps moving, keeps changing its pattern like the moving clouds. Hence you need to start understanding and syncronising your life with this dance, rather than see it as never changing and stale . This is called understanding and moving with God's Will. God's Will is that the universe and all in it is subject to change, movement and a dance. You need to be a partner to this Will as you start understanding it. This well help you to break out of your stalemate and spiral like a hurricane upwards towards success, joy, happiness and wisdom. God's Will will help you start grabbing those forces that cause a mighty wind and storm or tsunami or earthquakes that bring about a sudden reordering of nature and all within it. You need to a partner to this great force called God which can wipe out the whole universe and restart it in the blink of an eye. Gurbani encourages us to get into partnership with God by becoming His child, His brother, His mate, His servant, even His lover, so you can start receiving all these forms of true loving from Him who made you. And we are lucky we have great Guru Granth Sahib as our Guru, our spiritual guide, and everything else through which the Loving Eternal God Guru manifests Himself in more ways than I can ever imagine.

There are more than one way at looking at where you are, where you could be and hence many oppurtunities actually await you. Many people who answer and try to help you here will help you look and evaluate all of those. A good dialogue has started and I will continue posting as I read others replies and your counter replies so that you can get the help you require asap. luv ya

[sall]

WJKK WJKF

Please ponder upon the below:

1. Can we ever know what our expectations are going to be??...nature has a way of testing in many ways even the ultimate super Gursikhs were tested, read the story of Bhai Manj. No matter who you are in life whether Gursikh or not your identity and soul reason for being will be tested, this is a universal law.

2. 99% of the time we are reactive in our behaviour towards anything, not many are the opposite which is Proactive. Gursikhe points in a proactive vision " dadda dosh kisse na dejaa"...do not blame ever anyone for your consequences or situation very hard to do easily said. Proactive people don’t blame anyone but carry on in a manner to constructively adapt to the situation as if to accept it willingly and work with it to improve, seek out to improve it, taking initiative as wales85 did in the above posting. You have to think very deeply about your life and your values and build on those values once you know what they are. Do you know what are your own values and how to find them if you don’t know?

3. As an effective individual you need to find time for your physical- in the form of some kind cardio or exercise for 30mins-1hour daily, secondly meditation for the mind, naam simran or mool mantar everyday on top of your daily nitnem. If all these are done for at least 3 months you will see change without a doubt in your thinking, attitude to your daily challenges.

4. Life is about facing everyday challenges with chardi kala (dynamic optimism), see if you ca produce the consistency in the above points and report back on this thread on how it’s going as others may learn from it too.

5. There are 3 constants in life Change, choice and principles , how have you adapted to all three so far? We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviours grow out of these assumptions.

When you have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that's called "success". But once you have a new challenge, the old, once-successful response no longer works. That's why it is called a "failure".

We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey

[humkire]

wow u guys are fast! by the time i tried to extend my help in typed form(I type very slow ) and posted it, wah wah so many exciting, rich, wise replies already here i have just read after posting hehe . Superduper has had no time to digest it yet i suppose! help comes fast wen u get on Sikhsangat faster than you can take it hehe.

Anyway, i have been reminiscing sal's last point. I like to add that the 'human '' experience can mean one thing to a manmukh and one thing to a gurmukh. A manmukh sees the human experience as a possibly one off oppurtunity that seems to appear everlasting to be successful in this world materialistically no matter what it takes , whereby the end can justify the mean. And when this oppurtunity appears or starts to diminish, it lends itself to one's depression and sense of lack of self worth and can propel one into a sad miserable emotional , physical and mental state.

However a gurmukh with a laser and raser sharp vision of reality, sees the human experience as a one off oppurtunity that can pop off any second, to quickly surrender to the spirit of God and be forever released from the cycle of births and deaths, and become a water droplet dissapperaring into the unseen eternal Oceon of Joy.

[jaswinder singh]

its simple to be happy , Live simple, remember the God always , be guided

by the sayings in Gurbani.

Whatever is not with me , is not mine ; whatever is mine

will always be with me . Whatever is good for me , the Almighty himself will bless

me with,He knows better what is good for me so i shouldnot worry

these are the keys to happiness , as Iwas told b my parents , & I follow

thanks