Finding Happiness........

SGBV · Aug 18, 2020

What we want in life?
We are running behind education, jobs, money, marriage, family, kids, and then to have a better life for our dependents etc..etc... for one single reason, i.e to live happy and successful in our lives.
People say, we have only one life and we must live it to the fullest; hence all the competrition behind everything to make that life "super Happy"

But, one question repeatedly echoes in my ears.... Are we really happy? Are we really content with what we wanted? After all the struggles to be happy, are we sure that we found happiness finally?

Of course we must be declared technically happy, because we have achieved everything what we wanted in material terms. We have gained our dream degree in that dream university, traveled abroad, and exposed to different cultures, got that job placement at the right age, and even got whatever the promotions we dreamed of. Got married, had kids, and established our own home, with all the luxuries as much as we could afford for.
But are we really happy? Is that the happiness we dreamed a few decades back when we started our lives as adults????

Yes happiness comes and goes, just like light and darkness in a day. What matters is to sustain that happiness.

Let me describe this from my POV.

When I look back myself in my teen times, all I could remember was "Happiness".
Although I didn't do anything deliberately to be happy back in those times, happiness stayed with us.
Life was so simple, and we took everything as it comes. We had good and bad days, birth & death in the family, etc... But life moved on.

Today, we are sincerely working so hard to find that "happiness" in life.
We struggle to find contentment and the sense of well-being to bring that smile in us with the sense of happiness in life.

When I was an adult, I struggled so hard to find scholarships to study abroad believing an "international degree" would make me "Happy & Successful. I was happy the moment I was selected. But then, my struggle was indescribable throughout my stay in abroad, away from home.

Though my career just happened, my struggle to sustain within United Nations in a Professional position is a history. I worked diligently and mostly in a very challenging environment to sustain this "professional Success & happiness" that was hard earned.

By the time I was 26, I had proper education & job in hand, but that didn't give me the desired happiness as I was yearning for a family to feel settled & happy.
I fell in love, believing that's where the ultimate happiness lies, hence decided to marry him. Had kids at the right time, bought our own home, vehicles, & luxuries and everything to settle with a huge struggle in the next decade. Of course I was happy during each and every development in life, but nothing stayed with me in a long run.
One after the other, problems came with everything, responsibilities made me compromise on the life style I was comfortable with.... and eventually, that made me miss out on the "happiness" front.

Several years down the line, today in my late 30s, I wonder what is happiness?
What is the meaning for all the struggles and fights that we face in the name of finding happiness?
What is the point of finding happiness with great struggle, and then losing out the same in no time?
Again the cycle gets repeated, and the struggle continuous.

If I look back my adult life, all I could see was my struggles.... of course I was successful after each and every struggle; hence felt happy for myself, but then what's the point when that success couldn't sustain that happiness?

As they say, life begins at 40.... I am looking forward to find "real happiness" in this second half of my life.
I understand, happiness is just a state of mind... But that mind in us is controlled by various external factors, which we have no control over!

I would welcome wise Lites from this forum to share your insights on the below points.

1) My mother always say, "we should be content with what we have".
back in her times, she had only a very few options to progress in life. So, feeling content with what she had was not a difficult choice for her.
Time & needs are different as of today, and finding contentment wholeheartedly isnt easy when you have rooms for progress, and opportunities are awaiting at your door. But then opportunities always comes with new challenges, and overcoming each of them takes your happiness away.
Although you progress in life, and feel happy about that state of progress, you easily get blindfolded with the day today issues, that takes your happiness away.

2) The desperate needs to be happy & successful...
Now a days, we don't take life as it comes. We force it to be successful. We plan it, we design it, and we want it in a certain way towards successful.
Its like a project cycle. You create your target, and struggle to achieve that. Once the target is achieved, you celebrate it for a couple of days (and that's the only happiness about it), and then set a new target for the next project. The cycle continues till you retire/die.
It isn't cool.... Is there an art to live in the moment, and take everything as it comes?

Thyagarajan · Aug 18, 2020

Kudos to your mini- treatise on happiness - how it eludes despite right kind of struggle and never everlasting.

Men & women folks strive and struggle only to get more convenience, more comfort, more pleasure, more material possession and more and more of everything to experience more and more pleasure and delight and momentary joy or rejoice for a while or period.

In pursuit of authentic or and absolute happiness, he or she goes about day in day out but the journey goes on and on accompanied by sadness or sorrow.

By the time he or she realises, it is impossible to reach happiness the productive life is almost exhausted and there is no sign of absolute happiness appearing at the end of the tunnel.

Eternal Happiness seems to me not the one we pursue through material possession or rearing or tearing a family. A cart puller sleeping on culvert alongside a traffic ridden street under brilliant sun seemed to me enjoys pure happiness.

For enjoying happiness one must experience sadness or sorrow.

A baby has to cry before showing signs of happiness.

A calf of camel just born kicked by mother camel before it stands to suckle. It seems to be a law in Nature that sadness and sorrow precede create a semblance or veneer of happiness.

Sadness is reciprocal of happiness. Extremes of happiness better experienced by exposure to extreme sadness. Dhirubhai Ambani with cut pieces and sarees engaged in selling door to door and even worked as a petrol pump man in UAE OR Dubai before he turned astonishingly rich built the world famous refineries etc. There is no pleasure or satisfaction without pain.

A mother has to experience pain before delivery but that is no guarantee that she would end up with happiness. There are many negative possibilities.

If one follows Lord Krishna philosophy, “do your duty - leave result to me” and at the same time enjoy doing the duty - am sure such person remains happy-bound.

Thanks and Regards.

HariLakhera · Aug 19, 2020

The short answer will be be take life as it comes and live in the present and do your duty. Happiness is not something that can be kept in a locker and feel the sense of it as and when needed by opening the locker and caressing it.

Thyagarajan · Aug 19, 2020

@SGBV
As addendum to my previous response:
Wife: Don’t put so many clothes for wash today.
Husband: Why ?
She said : Maid has said she won’t come for two days.
Husband :Why ?
Wife : She said she is going to meet her grand daughter during Ganpati festival.
Husband : OK, Will not put too many clothes.
Wife: And, Shall I give her Rs. 500 for Ganpati? Festival bonus?
Husband: Why? Diwali is approaching, we will give her at that time.
Wife: Oh no dear. She is poor. Going to meet her daughter and grand daughter, so she will also feel nice. Moreover, everything has become so expensive these days. How will she able to celebrate festival?
Husband : You ! I don’t know why you become emotional so easily.
Wife : Oh dear, don’t worry. I am going to cancel today’s program of ordering Pizza. Why unnecessarily blow away Rs. 500 on eight pieces of stale bread.
Husband : Wow. Great. Snatching Pizza from us and giving to the maid !
Maid returned after three days and got busy in mopping and dusting.
Husband asked her.. So, how was the vacation ?
Maid : Very nice sahib.. Didi had given Rs. 500 .. festival bonus.
Husband : So you went and met your daughter ? and also met your grand daughter ?
Maid: yes sahib. Enjoyed a lot and spent Rs 500 in two days time.
Husband : Really ? Ok so what did you do with Rs. 500?
Maid : Rs. 150 for dress for grand daughter, Rs 40 for a doll, bought sweets worth Rs 50 for daughter, Rs 50 as offering to Deity in temple, Rs 60 towards bus fare, Rs 25 for bangles for daughter, bought a nice belt worth Rs 50 for son-in-law, balance Rs 75 gave to daughter to buy copy and pencil for grand daughter. Maid gave a full account of the expenses incurred.
Husband : So much in Rs 500?
With surprise, he started thinking. The eight pieces of Pizza appeared in front of his eyes and each one of them acted as a hammer started pricking his consciousness. For the price of one Pizza, he started comparing the expenses his maid had incurred during her visit to her daughter.
The eight pieces of Pizza floated in front of his eyes.
First piece ... dress for the child
Second piece … towards sweets..
Third piece … towards offering to the deity in the temple.
Fourth piece ... towards bus fare.
Fifth piece ... towards doll.
Sixth piece ... towards bangles,
Seventh piece... towards belt for the son-in-law.
Eighth piece... towards copy and pencil.
So far he had observed pizza only from one angle. He turned it upside down and observe how it looks like from the other side but today his maid showed him the other side of the pizza. The eight pieces of pizza showed him the real meaning of happiness in life.
Regards.

Thyagarajan · Aug 19, 2020

Deleted

kaluputti · Aug 19, 2020

Very good post and late 40s is the right time as the op's to start thinking in these lines....well invariably. Yes, happiness means different things at each stage of life and changes for a person from childhood to old age..!Finally when when we become old, like me, realise that it is as I read somewhere..."like a butterfly, while we keep chasing it ,looking for it, realise that it is actually sitting on our shoulders."

Novalis · Aug 19, 2020

Finding happiness ..like finding Nemo?

Some are blithe and upbeat, and happiness comes to them naturally, not in bursts of possession or achievement, but even in their homeostasis. Difficult to explain how they do it, they just feel so naturally cheerful even in the trivialities of life, even in the nothingness and ambition, alike, even in novelty and familiarity. They are bhalle bhalle doolally creatures. They themselves might find it challenging to explain their glee and buoyancy and brain chemistry.

Viswamitra · Aug 19, 2020

Novalis said: ↑

Finding happiness ..like finding Nemo?

Some are blithe and upbeat, and happiness comes to them naturally, not in bursts of possession or achievement, but even in their homeostasis. Difficult to explain how they do it, they just feel so naturally cheerful even in the trivialities of life, even in the nothingness and ambition, alike, even in novelty and familiarity. They are bhalle bhalle doolally creatures. They themselves might find it challenging to explain their glee and buoyancy and brain chemistry.

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It sounded like an autobiography of @Novalis.

kaluputti · Aug 20, 2020

Yes it is.....

Thoughtful · Aug 20, 2020

Your post reminded me of this 12 minute talk. Many answers are in the small steps he wants us to take. Do we have it in ourselves to take these steps and create room for happiness