Happiness is something which most of us want to feel. Some know how to feel it, others convince themselves that they are living it and others cannot find any [singlepic id=178 w=310 h=230 float=right] way to reach it.
The real problem is in finding the real meaning of happiness. Happiness and other emotions we feel are all gained and understood through those who teach us and stand around us. Time and place affect on the way we understand these emotions. In our days the meaning of happiness have changed and the ways we are given to choose from does not really help in reaching real happiness.

We prefer to convince ourselves that we are living the emotion we seek although deep inside us we know that we aren’t. Happiness is something which cannot be felt only by depending on what we can use from around us. Such a feeling won’t last forever and would soon vanish. Our mind is the tool which we use to see the world, analyze it and then feel it. Without our imagination we can never succeed in understanding the world in the way we want and without the world we can never have anything to imagine.

Whether it is happiness joy or anything else, we need to use the world we live in so we can imagine and create what we want to live. Reaching a peaceful and happy status would make it easier for us to communicate with others, understand the world and create in our own ways. It is not necessary that we should live in the same way others did in order to feel what they felt. Instead we should discover new ways which will make us feel what the others couldn’t feel.

Not only that we need to use our imagination and the surroundings to feel joy, but we also need to appreciate who we really are in order to have the power to move forward. Most of us are busy working and fighting to stand still and get what is considered necessary to live. While doing this we forget who we really are and what we want to do so those who will come after us can remember us. For example universities today became institutions which people attend in order to get a certificate that can allow them to work in a good place and get a good salary that allow them to live. Students study and attend classes only because they have to and therefore creativity and research are forgotten. Only a few succeed to use the educational institutions in order to achieve something that can serve humanity. Even though this minority fight hard to create something they are not appreciated for doing so.

The ridiculous thing is that we criticize those who lived before us because they didn’t care for those who we consider great today. We appreciate those who invented and wrote what is considered the bases of our life today but we are doing the same mistake which was made at their time by neglecting those who think and create today and would become the great people of the future. They say that only in difficult circumstances one can become great and helpful but what we face today seems to be different. In the last twenty years we witnessed a revolution in technology and inventions which made our life completely different from those who lived before us. It is true that we enjoy things which make our life seem to be easy but the world we have today seems to be the top we can reach and at the same time the point that will leads us directly down.

Happiness is a status which can be felt only if we really want to feel it…it can be felt by appreciating what we have, helping those who cannot feel it and work hard to save what is left from the reality of who we are.

Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad

A Palestinian-Arab living in East Jerusalem, Ziad graduated from College Des Freres in Jerusalem in 2003. Ziad finished his major in International Relations and English Literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ziad is a former President of the Watan student movement at the university. He is interested in Middle Eastern political issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Founder of the Middle East Post and MEL (Middle East Future Leadership Network), he represents Palestinian youth at several international conferences.

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