We all use check lists. We use them to manage things and tasks efficiently. And we have often used check lists for seeing to if things are ready for an event or a picnic or a travel or a seminar.

There are some more check lists that we use without a note pad or a pen. We use them on a very subliminal level but they control our mental patterns to limits beyond imagination.  Some times our whole set of emotions is being controlled by these.

These are check lists for happiness or being happy.  We often have made a quite long usually a 10 to 15 items on a check list for being happy.

• The weather has to be fine. If its England, it has to be bright and sunny. If its the tropical regions, it has to be cloudy and windy.
• We have to be with the person we want to be with.
• We have to have our favourite food.
• We do not want anything to happen other than planned.
• We have to see if our looks are really as great as we wanted them to be this morning.
• We have to have the right drinks along with.
• If  its’ a dinner or a family outing we have to make sure that it has to be better than the last time, as we immediately start to compare our present activity to that some times in the past.
• We do want our kids to act like what they are not yet: mature!
• If its an event, we can only be happy if we are some how assured that no one else dressed like us.
• Or on a long term scale we wait to achieve some thing big to be happy. Our response to it is : “Till that is not yet done, I can’t be happy.”

And it’s a long long list.

The reality is that life is designed in a manner that this check list shall never be ticked in full. There shall always be some thing not yet done or not yet perfect or going out of the plan or unwanted or some thing that bothers us or pushes us against our limits, even on that day, which we reserved for being happy or to have fun.

Do one thing, simply uncheck the check list of happiness from your life. Do not wait for things to go your way, before you can be genuinely happy. For that state the right word is joy.

When you are truly happy in and out without a reason, or with a reason, surrounded with in tough life routines and obstacles or having a vacation some where in South Africa or Spain, when you are truly content with just being you and with the things as they are, when you have learnt the art of enjoying life what ever it offers to us, you have learnt to be a joyous soul.

Uncheck the check list for being happy !