Coffee With The Coach : Our Happiness - Anvesha Rana

Today We Talk About Our Happiness

Many of us feel that we will only be happy when something big happens when we finally get promoted or get an expensive gift. Why are we so adamant about linking our happiness to worldly possessions? Why can’t we be happy for no reason? Our joy is always because of something, and as long as this lasts, we can never be pleased since someday, the best dress in your closet will look worn out. Eventually, the best game you got once will look very old and ultimately, the job that you had always dreamt of will turn out to be a nightmare.  

There should be no because when it comes to happiness, I am happy. After all, it is just not okay. I am happy, that’s it. I need no reason to be happy. Someday that reason will go, and then I will be sad. So I am happy, as simple as that. But even I agree it's tough to be happy without any reason, once you think about it, do we always have something to be sad about? Is the world always falling apart for us? Are we always struggling? Then why are we always so gloomy and upset? If we can always be sad, we can learn to be happy. 

Happiness is a choice, and it’s not a miracle that a wand will be waved and all the miseries of life will vanish, but it is a choice that we make each day. Despite everything that takes place in our lives, we should still have the strength to face the world and to sideline that sadness to accept the fact that whatever may happen shall happen but I chose to be happy.

Being happy is rather misused, we are not happy if we are troubled by the presence of others, we are not happy if we have restricted it to a definite zone and we are not happy simply by trying to act happy. Happiness comes from within and we can never thrust the responsibility of something as important as our happiness onto someone else’s shoulders because believe it or not, expectations are born to die, no one in this world should be the reason for your contentment. When you are the reason behind your own happiness, you find solace in yourself and there is nothing better than that. 

Something as commonly expressed as happiness which is still yet completely vague for all of us is a big problem. We don’t know what happiness is and well we don’t even have to know what it is. Happiness is like love, when you are happy you will know it and you will be happy without any reason at all. 

Anvesha Rana

Grade 11 

Gyanshree School 

Coffee With The Coach : Emotions - Anvesha Rana

Today We Talk About Emotions

Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent. Learn to detach yourself from emotions. But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate fully. That's how you can leave it. 

Take any emotion - Grief for a loved one or pain or fear from a task. If you hold back on these emotions and don't allow yourself to go through them, you can never get to being detached; you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain; you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. 

But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what grief is. And only then you can say, 'All right, I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'

How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how we feel sorry for what we have done, but we don't say anything because we're frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship. 

Instead, our approach should be the exact opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside and pull it on like a familiar shirt, you can say to yourself, "All right, it's just fear; I don't have to let it control me. I see it for what it is."

Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely - but eventually be able to say, "All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I am not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I will put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I will experience them as well."

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School.

Coffee With The Coach: Love Goes on - Anvesha Rana

Today We Talk About How Love Goes On.

We all love our family, friends, and teachers, but that is when we are alive. We live and love but do we ever worry about being forgotten after we die?

All throughout our life, we are involved with so many people in different ways, and after all, love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone. After a dear one passes, we may hear their voice when we are back home and all alone; that is love. If we can hear their words, they are not gone. Just listen to their call, and they will be there.

Making people feel welcome is another way of love. Only when we believe in being fully present can we love and let love. When we talk to someone, we should focus only on what is happening between us. We should not think about what someone said last week or what is coming up next Friday. If we want to love and wish for others to love us, we should live in the moment now. 

Learning to pay attention is an important way of love. So many people are always self-absorbed in their lives; their eyes glaze over if you speak for more than thirty seconds. They already have something else in their mind - a friend to call, a fax to send, work to do. They only snap back to full attention when you finish talking, at which point they say "Uh-huh" or "Yeah, really" and fake their way back to the moment. 

Part of the problem is that everyone is in such a hurry. People haven't found meaning in their lives, so they are running all the time looking for it. They think of the next car, the next house, the next job. They find those things empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it's hard to slow down, but it's not impossible. 

We are great at small talk: "What do you do?" "Where do you live?" But really listening to someone- without trying to sell them something, pick them up, recruit them or get some status in return - how often do we get this anymore?

So to be loved, we first need to learn to love

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School