Living in Harmony Leads to Happy Life
An essential factor for leading and creating a happy life is to be able to live in harmony with others. In order to achieve this, we must recognize and acknowledge that there are many different paths or routes people can take to reach the same goal. Hence, we should not be unduly upset if the others practise their own customs or have opinions that differ from you.
Grant Others the Right to Differ
If you are living all by yourself in your own world, you will definitely have no problems with differing opinions. But reality shows that if we have chosen to live in this society, we must learn to value and handles views and opinions of others even though they do not align with yours. This might be a difficult task to accomplish because we are living in a world that might is stronger than right. The strong takes advantages of the weaks and the rich exploits the poor. But we should take the first step to avoid acting in this manner. If we cannot come to an agreement, we have to learn at least to agree to disagree and should gently express our views without trying to forcefully impose the views on the other people. Those who use physical force to overcome their opponents clearly display their inability to convince the other that they are right.
We will feel comfortable when other people agree with us, but in situations where there are differed views, we can treat it as an opportunity for personal growth. At times the opinion or views other have of our attitudes or actions may not be something we would like to hear, but if we open our ears and listen carefully, we might realise there are some truths in those opinion that we can learn from and benefit ourselves. This definitely give us a chance for self improvement if we are prepared to change our ways and approaches.
It simply means that we cannot please everyone and the under-mentioned story will clearly show it. The story goes…
Once upon a time, there was a man, accompanied with his son taking a donkey to the market. As they were walking, some people saw them and remarked, “Look at those fools, why don’t they ride the donkey?” The man heard it and responded by asking his son to ride the donkey while he walked alongside. While they are moving on, an old woman seeing this exclaimed, “What is the world coming to? Look at the young man riding comfortably while he make his father walk!” So the young man got off the donkey and this time round, the father rode the donkey. They continued their journey and they met a young woman who advice them to ride on the donkey together and they did so. Yet another group who saw this scene said, “Oh! What a poor animal, it has to carry 2 good-for-nothings! How cruel they are!”
By this time, the father and son were getting frustrated and decided to dismount and carry the donkey instead in order to stop everyone from talking. But this action led people to laugh and say, “Look at these human “donkeys” carrying a donkey”. Of course, this donkey did not like this arrangement at all. While they are approaching a river, it tried to break loss to set itself free and finally the man, his son and their donkey all landed into the waters.
What does this story tell us? When you try and please everyone, you will end up pleasing no one and eventually, you will only land into troubles.