People have forgotten the art to laugh at themselves. They take the slightest of criticism to their hearts and feel hard done by life. I have always believed that control what you can control, and what you cannot control, let it be. If you understand this art of living, you gradually develop the knack of remaining happy amidst the hurricanes, storms and earthquakes of life.

If we remain centered inside and observe the rotation of wheel of life or the good and bad happenings of life, just like we watch a movie, we would know that world is a big drama and we are just actors, playing different roles in it, at different times and occasions. And an actor simply acts; he may look sad outside, in tears or in great pain, but inside he/she knows that they are just acting and the flame of contentment and happiness remains ever-alive.

The secret to happiness can be sapped out from the experience of watching comedy movies, where humor is sourced from the trillion tragedies in the life of the protagonist. The protagonist weeps, we laugh; he feels dejected, we feel uplifted; he tramples over and falls flat on the ground, we roll on the ground laughing out loud. Two contrasts are happening at the same time, utter contrasts.

What’s the lesson in there, the life is a game and if we watch it like a detached witness, not getting identified with the events, we can discover the comedy in tragic circumstances. In a movie, there are all sort of actors. There’s a villain, there’s a loyal friend, there’s a back stabber, there’s a lover and so many other incomparable characters. We enjoy friends in real life, we enjoy romance in real life, but we simply reject the backstabbers and the villains. The misery lies in our rejection, our ‘big no’ to seeing the entire screen of life, where heroes find as much space as villains. But we simply want to push away entry to the villains, we struggle throughout our lifetime to ward off hard challenges but that never happens. What we need to do is just to watch the so-called villains in our life like a detached witness and enjoy their acting. They too are also an intrinsic part of life.

This way we won’t take their evil intentions to our hearts and our response to their targeted stimuli will be a soul-driven response rather than an ego-driven response. Thus, we would just enjoy the whole play.

This way without defeating the villains, we’ll score an easy victory over them. Watch the movies fully absorbed, they teach us a lot. No wonder, they find so much space in our life.