As we all agree on a view that the ultimate objective of life is happiness. We all live in a colourful world and different people of the world have different ways to attain happiness. Happiness is a conscious choice on the part of human being. It is a subjective and relative concept among the masses. Happiness is a universal bliss. Everybody wants to become happy. One who does not want to be happy is either God or Mad man. Though, happiness is a universal wish. Yet none of us lucky enough to get enough of it and get completely acquainted with it.
There are different ways of getting happiness through health, wealth, position and power. Peace and contentment is the minimisation of one’s wants.
A man always tries to get more and more and never gets tired of a thing. But we must always remember that “ We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give”.
As a matter of fact, meaning of happiness is generally misunderstood. Many people fail to differentiate between pleasure and happiness. Pleasure is short lived while happiness is long lasting, permanent and persistent. Pleasure is derived through a satisfaction of desire of the sense. While happiness is a matter of soul. Similarly we also confuse between success and happiness because we define success in terms of power and money so Success is not the key to happiness rather happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you are bound to be successful.
Till now I have just tried to explain what is happiness? And how society endeavours to attain it? Why are we constantly chasing it? But all these things really confuse me that is it really happiness? Or to know happiness we just need to know what causes us to be happy which vary from person to person! Or does the society really attain it? Is the concept of happiness real or imaginary one? Happiness is slippery, elusive, illusion or is it really attainable? Our mind is often in conflict with itself!
We all seek happiness, yet, quite often we find it elusive. Like the spring mist, it is hard to hold on to. Why is it so?
Did you ever search a room for your eye glasses only to discover that they are propped up on your forehead all the time? Searching for happiness is like looking for glasses while you are wearing them. No wonder you cannot find happiness because it is not outside but inside you. It comes from within!
Happiness is what everybody wants but it is difficult to find it. What is happy to me might not cause happiness for you. Happiness can be a feeling or it can be a state of mind. Trying to define it is difficult. It is a subjective concept as I have stated above, with everyone having a different answer. For me, what is happiness? There is no such thing, Happiness is an illusion. It is so elusive because we think we know what it is and we know we want it but it does not exist. Happiness is an elusive goal. It is a conspiracy and controversy within. This is why, happiness is ephemeral. It is not what we have, but what we are, and also not what we possess but what we enjoy.
Every infant lives in a natural state of happiness. They are in awe of the world and experience joy with each discovery and accomplishment. However, as they grow, they are subjected to an endless barrage of criticisms from those around them. As a result, their psyche becomes filled with negative thoughts that prevent them from experiencing happiness.
Some people believe that they will be happy when they graduate or when they get a job or when they get promoted or when retire or when they are drunk or when they become a saint and so on. Happiness to them is always an elusive goal that is expected to arrive sometime in the future. But happiness is not contingent on things or events; it is not a destination but a state of being. It is not meant to be experienced in the future but at this very moment. Now our past is dead and our future is unborn. So, the only state of being happy is now and the way to be happy is to make others happy.
Remove the negativity from your mind and widen it up, because a positive mind anticipates happiness. We must learn to surrender to the flow of events, to accept what cannot be changed. Did someone cut you off on the highway? Someone may or will. But why get upset? Anger just fosters in your system and eats away at your happiness. Why get frustrated and why are we nursing a grudge within with the fear of future and kill all your happiness?
Here I would like to put a quote which has inspired me to write this article;
“ We find greatest joy”, not in getting but in expressing what we are. Men do not really live for honours or for pay; their gladness in not taking and holding, but in doing, It is good to get justice but better to do it, fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives a life full of love, not for the honours it may bring, but for the life itself”.
It is common to we all that when we meet our near ones we just ask how are you? We usually reply fine! But are we really Ok, Fine or happy, of course not contented! But we reply positively because we anticipate happiness in future. How happy we are depends on how happy we think!
The unhappiness within cannot be completely satisfied by external events or circumstances. To find happiness in life we must first be at peace with ourselves internally. The more we get the more we want and never gets contented so there is no satisfaction, what we have is never enough to us...how can we expect for happiness. Humanity is on brink of its extinction and there is only ray of hope in peace which comes through satisfaction.
Happiness is a short run phenomenon. For me the happiest moment of my life is to do what others say you can’t. On the one hand we think that the secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage. On the other hand we experience we may have life and liberty but the pursuit of happiness is not going so well. Does not it seem to be an illusion to you all?
Hence you will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of? The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase, if you pursue happiness you will never find it! There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved!
Hey my intention is not to get you stuck in the elusive fact of happiness But to aware you all that don’t chase it constantly, you will never find it rather just accept it the way it comes to you. Finally just remember only one think which I have been following that Happiness comes from enjoying the daily small things of life!
ALL THE BEST; BE HAPPY AGAIN.
No comments:
Post a Comment