PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

At the end of the day, humankind is pursuing an ultimate superior goal, far away from wealth and all other desirable material possessions. What is that goal? One word- Happiness. How do we define happiness? How do we measure it? How does one eventually judge this state of being? How do we become happy? Millions of us have agonized over these questions for almost our entire lives.

If we are to define, happiness is a state of well-being, widely encompassing living a good life. Happiness could also mean having a deep sense of contentment, meaning and self-satisfaction towards oneself and one’s own life. All in all, happiness is wellness, in thought, word and deed. But the underlying question still lies, are we truly happy?

Happiness may mean different things to different people; for some, it may be family, relationships, friendships, love, trust, companionship, marriage and the like. For some, it may be career, designation, wealth, savings, travel, power and recognition.

I would like to take us through a human life cycle. From the time we were kids who played in the housing premises, to then going to school, advancing through college and then graduation. Then starts “life” as we may call it. We get jobs or start a business, get married, have kids and there comes the human life cycle for the kids again. Through each phase of our lives, we have wanted more. When young, we wanted to grow up to get to school. When in school, we wanted to go to college, when in college, we wanted to start earning money- all for the aspiration of being happy and “getting there”.

On the work front, our mission starts with getting a job in the right place to then wanting a salary raise, a promotion, or an even better job! Why? In the pursuit of happiness. What are we actually doing here? We are simply “Delaying the achievement of the goal of being happy”. The first step to understanding happiness is to understand that it is not the destination, it is the journey. We always tend to set goals in order to be happy. “If I lose weight, I will be happy, If I buy a Mercedes, I will be happy, If I travel to Greece, I will be happy.” The problem lies with the word “IF”. Happiness is a state of life, like the presence of oxygen. We may not regard the significance of the oxygen we breathe, but we breathe it every single second of our lives. It is important that we consider happiness to be the most fundamental aspect of life too. Happiness is meant to be unconditional, regardless of what you possess, achieve or not.

Let us now understand this clearly through graphical representation and a hypothetical example. A woman owns a necklace and is bubbling with joy. When at a party, a friend shares an opinion on the necklace, pointing towards it not being the best. Suddenly, the joy of the necklace owner turns into deep despair, thus leading her to being unhappy. This was the necklace she desired her whole life and thought would make her despicably happy. But the same necklace brought about a stimulus of unhappy thoughts due to the adverse comment of the friend.

We measure our happiness based on the object (in this case, the necklace). However, it is essential that we realise that it was not the object that created the happy thoughts, it was the creator (necklace owner). This is certainly an absolute error that we as individuals of today’s day and age tend to make. We must be mindful of the fact that happiness is what we find and create within ourselves.

There are no set rules or guidelines that we need to refer to be happy. There is neither any secret nor any theory in concrete or abstract that defines happiness. It is a self generated emotion. Let us not persuade targets or goals to become happy, let us not delay it any further! It is life’s greatest treasure and it is right there within you. The true and the only key to happiness, You- the Creator.

As Sri Chinmoy rightly states – “ I am very happy because I have conquered myself, and not the world. I am very happy because I have loved the world and not myself”.