The Pursuit of Happiness, Part 2

So, how does one find their 'self'?

Unless you have alot of time and space to be alone and contemplate things, without distractions abundantly available in today's society, it is very difficult.

It took my employer more than half his life to even begin to find his 'self', and that was only after an extremely traumatic event.

One step to that path, is confidence. A confident person is less susceptible to external influences on the inner balance of their emotions, and more importantly, reactions.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that there is indeed a choice of whether I would let something affect me and how.


A simple, everyday example. You are driving to work on a typical day, after a relaxed, happy weekend. A car swerves in from the left and cuts into your path, making you hit the brakes hard.
Anger rises, and you start blasting your horn, and perhaps begin tailgating the car out of indignation. From observation, a common reaction among Malaysian drivers.

What began as a pleasant day, ruined for the rest of it all thanks to one minor incident. Not only that, in the future you might develop a habit of sticking close to the car in front, so as to avoid or at least lessen the possibility of someone cutting into your lane, which needless to say, will sharply increase the chances of your getting into an accident.

You can observe the thread of events that start with a single reaction to a single situation start to have a more widespread affect, like ripples in a pond when a stone is thrown into the water. Now, imagine if you choose NOT to let some rude driver's exploits affect your own driving, and choose not to let your emotions take the wheel.

You choose to drive confidently, and avoid or at least lessen the chances of some insecure driver swerving into your lane, by always maintaining several car's length of road in front of you. Now even if someone swerves into your lane, at least you don't have to hit your brakes as hard (since you're driving slower and have more room to brake), and therefore your feelings will be reduced to just slightly annoyed instead of RRRRAAAAGGGEEEE!!!!!!

Applying this to the previous example, the tailgating behaviour, will affect OTHER drivers as well, believe it or not.

Try experimenting next time when you are stuck in a jam. Try maintaining 2-3 cars' length distance (6-10 metres) in front of you at all times, instead of the usual couple of inches, or at least 3 metres when stopped.
In a matter of minutes, you will usually see OTHER vehicles around you starting to do the same and keeping a larger distance in front instead of sticking bumper to bumper.

A very interesting experiment indeed on human behaviour on the road. It just takes one car to drive confidently to give a sense of assurance to the other vehicles around, and from my view, that little much more of a pleasant drive despite being in a traffic jam which IMO makes all the difference (and easier on your car, as you will be stopping and starting less, hitting your brakes less and therefore reducing the wear and tear on your car, even saving a little petrol in the process).

So, how does this tie into one's pursuit of happiness, you ask? Well, Simple. You certainly cannot choose when, what and where things will disturb and/or upset your feelings, but you can certainly choose HOW these events will affect you and your actions.

I believe insecurity is the root of the majority of problems people face today, and insecurity is caused by the lack of confidence in oneself. Using anything else other than your 'self' to hold your self-esteem up is the path to an unstable sense of self-esteem. Material wealth, friends or other external things are for naught if one does not have self-confidence built upon oneself.

If you can take criticism as a valuable piece of information about your beliefs or personal faults you overlooked (and therefore can fix) and thank the critic, if you can accept and overcome failiure and hardship as challenges that are simply stepping stones to a greater goal in life, then you're already one step toward true happiness.