When I ask someone what's the opposite of Happiness, the usual answer I receive is Sadness. To better explain my question, I follow-up with another question - What is the opposite of Love. Again, the usual answer is Hate. Well, we all get in a fight / argument with people we love and at that moment, due to anger or frustration, we for a moment hate that person, but that's temporary. Usually Love overpowers that Hate and we are back to normal again. The opposite of Love is Indifference, because that's what hurts most. Imagine you love someone and they are indifferent towards you. Similarly, opposite of Happiness is not Sadness, it's Hopelessness.
Life is like an ECG and we will always have our ups and downs. What happens if the ECG is a straight line, we are dead, right? Just like the ECG, we are happy when the curve is upwards and we often become hopeless when we strike rock-bottom. The important point here is to NOT feel hopeless. Funny thing is that someone can cheat us, rob us, steal from us, back-stab us, maximum they can kill me, but they can't take Hope away from me. It's something that we give-up ourselves. What if we don't lose hope. Hope, if used as an acronym stands for - Hold On Pain Ends.
At this point I usually share a joke - A priest used to pray to god to help him win a lottery. Every day on a regular basis, same prayer. Days passed, months passed, years passed. Even God got frustrated and appeared in front of him and asked - When will you buy the lottery ticket?
By only being Hopeful we will never come out of a difficult situation. We need to compliment Hopefulness with our never-ending Efforts. If we continue to put our best efforts and remain hopeful and positive, we will be back at the TOP.
