Stories & Articles

Googling For Happy Thoughts

How good it would have been had we the ability to transplant thoughts in our mind. How good, if we could google for a happy thought and put it in place of a miserable one.

Aashi, the heroine of my novel Dream’s Sake, says in one scene, ‘I think I should better stop thinking. Thoughts are what make everything so hard.’

Today morning, I was feeling much the same. All sorts of thoughts were racing against each other in my poor little head. And the biggest trouble was that none of them had a happy colour.

My mind, lately, has got into the habit of working overtime. Till the wee hours of the morning, I lie awake, my eyes begging for sleep, but the mind just wouldn’t rest.

And it doesn’t help either that just when I’m feeling so worried, the news on TV fills up with troubling reports, I almost have a quarrel on someone else’s blog, and Anandi of Balika Vadhu loses her husband too.

It just doesn’t help.

‘Ah, silly you,’ I tell myself, ‘Anandi will still keep on earning hefty pay package whether Jagdish stays with her or not. You worry about yourself!’

Wrong advice.

Very wrong advice.

Because, silly me, I’m already doing that.

Is my book good enough? Is it contemporary enough? Will it be handled well by the publisher? Will it be promoted well? Will it be received well? Will it sell? Will it succeed? Ah, I’m tired, I need another thought, please!

It’s my dream. It’s the basis of all my dreams of the future. What will happen if it fails? I have little else to fall back upon. What will happen if my dreams break? What will happen if…what will happen if…what will happen if…Ugh! I need another thought! I need a happy thought, please.

I tried counting my blessings. They were many, but all of them were old familiars. And thus they passed away quietly to their usual places, without bothering to push even one noisome and noisy thought out of my mind.

Having nothing else to do, at the same time having a great need to do something, I actually started googling. I googled for happy thoughts. But that didn’t help much, except for the lovely guitar google doodle of the day. It was fun, but nothing much to think about, unfortunately.

Then, the happy thought arrived on its own.

But first, tell me, has it ever happened to you that you hear or see something and feel as if it had a secret message, intended just for you?

This has happened to me twice. The first time was when I had only started thinking of becoming a writer. I had then only started thinking of writing a novel. But as this my dream took birth, so did many doubts about it. I wondered if I was just being foolish for weaving such big and impossible sounding ambitions.

Then the Akashvaani was heard and I was told to dream on. ‘No matter how many times your dreams break, don’t stop dreaming. Just go on trying, and one day, your dreams would come true.’

You don’t believe me? But I’m telling you the truth. That’s exactly what the program anchor on FM radio said. The radio channel wasn’t Akashvani, but then, its vani was still coming through the aakaash, wasn’t it?

But radios have become old fashioned now. And today, God chose the latest mode of communication to send His message to me.

I clicked on the link on a tweet I was reading. And it led me to a website with inspirational messages. The first post asked one question. When success proves elusive, how long do you keep on trying? And the answer it gave was in just one word. UNTIL. Yes, UNTIL you succeed.

I had found my happy thought. Try, until you succeed. Keep your dreams alive, and go on trying.

I have found my happy thought now. I just hope it will stay sticking in my mind. And tomorrow, I won’t have to go searching for another.


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Author Jyoti Arora's website and books

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2 Comments

  1. That was a truly positive post. What is a dream after all if abandoned in the middle of the road?
    Good luck with your dreams and I am sure the happy thought will stay! 😀