Blog - November 5, 2019

Day 5 : The November Happiness Challenge 2019

Hi. I am The Mansu.   Today makes it exactly a month since I started my 29th year in this very chaotic life, for which I am immensely grateful and genuinely happy. If you live on and are reading from this crazy earth, you’d know how important it is to find your happiness whether from within or from people, places or things. Usually for me, happiness almost goes with gratitude. When I am happy, I am probably grateful for something at the same time. In no particular order, here are 10 things out of the numerous that cause me genuine happiness and hope that you can relate with or explore as you wish. One Answered Prayers: I generally like balance. While sometimes I feel like I can do better with religiousness and spirituality, I am happy to say I am a rather conscious Muslim. Within this consciousness, I uphold the tenets and principles of the faith which include submission to the Almighty. Moreover, one of the acts of submission is praying to God or requesting or asking of something you desire. When my requests are granted therefore, regardless of its weight or ostensible importance, I am always genuinely happy. I could pray for something as simple as, ‘this stew I’m making right now, Oh Lord, let it turn out delicious and enjoyable’, and when that happens, you know Mansu is happy. Two Food makes me happy, very happy. From watching all kinds of food shows, to grocery shopping to prepping ingredients, to cooking, plating, and of course EATING! Food is something I find very experiential and so I like to create memories out of anything that has to do with food whether I am doing it by myself or in the company of others. There was one time I cooked till I landed in the hospital (due to stress), I left the hospital and guess where I went first, a restaurant to eat! Paradise on a plate Three Making it, having it, seeing it, smelling it, counting it or spending it. Money is a huge source of my happiness. I can’t even stress its importance in my life. The affordability of my wants, the accessibility and proximity to other sources of happiness, money sure does make me happy. Four One of my safest, most relieving, joyous moments is spending quality time with my family. I am a new mom, and I hope you can imagine the serendipity of constantly interacting with a living thing who hardly ever (equally) responds to anything you say. It is beauty in itself. Conversations with my 7-month old and her responses represented by a coo, a very sudden scream or absolute silence are a part of this enjoyable quality time I speak of. It does make me genuinely happy. Finally I have an audience that’ll be present 24 hours, 7 days for at least 15 years. If that isn’t joy. My husband listening to my tales or us playing cards, football, watching movies, eating, or just randomly calling my mom or sister to rant or gist, amidst so many other times with family – these are moments I cherish wholeheartedly. Five Good Sex makes me very happy (therefore my husband makes me very happy). Wide-grin, no-worries, dancing type of happy. We will be skipping further details because this page is PG13. Six Writing or any form of creative activity I indulge in makes me genuinely happy. This quarter, I put a goal to my writing and so far I have written more than 16,000 (Sixteen thousand) words and every time I update my progress tracker with an additional word count, I feel this joy from within. I love it. Seven Like answered prayers, achieved goals make me happy. I am one to set out goals, tasks, create to-do lists, create a time table, routines and rituals, and every time I tick off for successfully completing a task or reaching a milestone, I am ecstatic. Eight Brainstorming. My mind is a mad house. If you were to draw patterns out of my thoughts, you’d end up with something like this. The good side to it is, I am always thinking of new ideas (or let’s say new ideas are always chasing me) and it does make me copiously joyous. I am also constantly working on actualising these goals and sieving through carefully. Assuming that with age comes grace (and wisdom to hold, or to let go). Nine Getting paid for my passion or skill. For every time I have received a reward for my passion (especially spoken words), my happiness level rises. The first time felt surreal and subsequent times haven’t felt any less. Talk about turning Passion to Profit. (I don’t know why I keep saying Passionfruit in my head). Ten And sometimes I am just happy and grateful for being alive, who I am and where I am and believing strongly that I am already living a part of my best life and the rest is just about coming. I sincerely hope you find one or two things (or more) here useful as you navigate through your journey of life and seeking happiness. I wish you nothing but joy. Connect with me on Instagram

Comments (8)

  1. Abdulhammed

    November 5, 2019

    That money and food you mentioned ehn, it’s not overrated. May we get more happiness than we’re getting.

  2. Officialazeezah

    November 5, 2019

    Family, God very key! That sex part got be smiling and grinning. Love this.

  3. Rahmart

    November 5, 2019

    Family is everything.
    Good food
    Money(Credit alerts makes me happy).
    Unanswered prayers makes me sad but this verse uplift me “it may be that you hate something when it is good for you and it may be that you love something when it is bad for you . Allah knows and you do not know Q2:216”

  4. Shaban

    November 5, 2019

    Good read.

  5. Zulaykha

    November 5, 2019

    Oh yeah! Good s*x is important, hahaha.
    I really enjoyed this piece❤

  6. Toyeen

    November 6, 2019

    I get excited when I’m having a nice meal too…food is underrated walahi😀
    I get excited also when I give gifts…pure joy.

  7. Waliyullah Adeniran

    November 7, 2019

    I love this piece, so detailed. Food is seems to be a unanimous source of happiness. Good food is life.

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