Ibn 'Athaillah As-Sakandary is known as a scholar who has a myriad of meaningful words of wisdom summarized in the book of Al-Hikam. Among his many words of wisdom, there is one pearl of wisdom that illustrates to us that the recipe for realizing happiness is simple. He reminded us that the location of happiness is not in something material, but depends on the condition of the heart.
Ibn 'Athaillah said in his wisdom:
"Reduce what is happy, then reduce what makes sad."
Or it can also be translated:
"Reduce your obsession with happiness, it will lessen your anxiety."
Many people are upset not because they don't have much wealth, but because their anxiety is due to their greed for treasure that never ends. On the other hand, there are some people who are pleasing to the eye, but actually they really enjoy life with all the simplicity that exists.
So if you want to be happy, don't be happy that there are many things that we can't afford or circumstances don't support, it's enough that we look around us, there are simple things that we can interpret as happiness.
A husband, for example, sometimes likes to get angry with his wife because her obsession is too high. She wants to be a perfect pious woman, so that no one tries to be better, she will not be able to be good in the view of very high things. The same is true of a wife's view of her husband.
A teacher for example. If his obsession is too high, he wants to be smart as fast as lightning, become an Olympic champion or become a scholar, then his obsession sometimes makes the teacher difficult and never grateful for his achievements. In fact there are many things that if enjoyed will be happy. There are people who previously could not read are now reading, there are people who previously did not pray now pray, and so on.
One of our friends told us that he heard one of Gus Baha's lectures. Gus Baha said; "Until now I don't know if my wife is pious or not, very good or not, because I don't expect her to be respectful to me. As long as I can see my wife being an ahlul qibla, still facing the same qibla, it's very happy for me. "
This story makes us aware that maybe all this time we are too demanding of the environment with high standards to meet the requirements of our happiness, while we sometimes forget to demand ourselves to be good so that the environment around us feels our happiness. Not to mention to set the standards as high as the standards we set for others from them to us.
That's all from me @joel0 hopefully it will be useful for all steemit 🙏🙏
