Al Madina Newspaper

THE question on everyone’s mind these days seems to be: How can we be happy and what are the reasons of happiness? People wrongly associate entertainment, laughing and mockery with happiness but these things can only bring temporary relief rather than a lasting feeling of happiness.

Human development experts have listed many basic factors for happiness. Firstly, all emotions function as viruses. It means that they are contagious, whether they are positive such as happiness or negative such as sadness and depression.

They can be transmitted from one person to another just like the flu. For example, in a situation like a funeral everybody can share sorrow and grief because they can feel the sadness around themselves. The point is that whenever you go somewhere where there is pain and suffering, you will surely feel the sadness.

The same applies to positive emotions such as happiness and excitement, which can be spread among people easily, like in weddings and parties. People can be affected by facial expressions very quickly.

Happiness is something we create as Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said “Knowledge means taking it upon one’s self to learn, meekness (showing patience and humility) means taking it upon one’s self to be meek and patience means taking it upon one’s self be patient”.

This means we can gain knowledge by learning just as we can gain happiness by being happy. In other words, we can be happy by surrounding ourselves with positive vibes and believing that we are happy and trying to feel it.