World Happiness Day 2018: Are you really happy?

On this World Happiness Day, dare yourself and make a choice: Dare to accept life the way it comes to you and Choose to be happy, says Aparna Kapoor

The definition of happiness has surely evolved over the ages. The things which made people happy in earlier times are no longer able to do the same to their heirs. Everyone seems to be frantically trying to find either the reason for this change or the new age happiness quotient. Sadly, neither is found. A lot of things could be identified as the culprit of snatching away the smiles from human faces. The blame game is on. The rapid global development, the new technologies, the new corporate scene, the shifting priorities of people, the swift pace the world is moving with, are all believed to be responsible for the extinction of the emotion, ‘happiness’.

‘Life is tough’ is what the youth today believes and lives by. The world has progressed and humans have evolved in all possible dimensions. All technological advancements were supposed to make things simpler. But they have, infact, complicated the situation for the human mind, which is designed to live simply with a minimalistic approach, by default. (Pause for a moment to appreciate the irony)

Doing one’s own thing, too, fails to bring happiness in one’s life. There is a hollow void, an emptiness within, which, though felt, is not addressed properly. The results are alarming-depression, addiction to drugs and alcohol,and in worst cases even suicide (read: The Blue Whale game). The facts are gaping at us with eyes wide open, but forget dealing with them; weare unable to even identify them because of our own complexities of mind.

And to be happy seems to be one of the most difficult and challenging tasks today, akin to taking the Ice Bucket Challenge; something which is not so difficult, but a very few dares to go ahead andactuallydo it. And when they are through it, they realize how easy it was.

Are you dead or alive?

Life and happiness are synonyms of each other. If there is life, there has to be happiness; and if you are happy, then it means that you are alive. To be alive should bereason enough for anyone to be happy; it is as simple as that. The moments you are happy are the only moments when you are actually alive, as they are the moments of self awareness. Every moment spent in sulking, complaining, brooding, blaming and getting adversely affected by others around you cuts out your true ‘life span’. Those moments spent under a cloud of gloom are the moments not lived at all. Make the most of every moment by simply being happywith the fact that you are alive because the rest of the things are anyway beyond your control, they will fall in place on their own.

‘Why?’ and ‘How’one may ask. There is a very basic explanation for the same. When you are happy, your mind is not wandering in search for happiness, right? ‘So?’one may again ask. Now try and relate to a situation when you are at peace with yourself and are happy from within.Aren’t these moments the ones when your mind is the sharpest and wisest to take the right decisions? You will rarely go wrong while taking a decision when you are in the right frame of mind. So does it explain why things will take care of themselves without you being too bothered about them? Not a bad deal, or is it?

The confusion

In this confusion of understanding life and happiness, we treat life and happiness as separate entities.We fail to see the fine thread which joins both of them. Life is beautiful; it only needs to be understood by its core content. That is what it demands.And the ones who can do it live a ‘happy’ life.

Life and happiness are simple, innocent; but it isourmind which plays the pivotal role. However, it can easily be controlled by our smart ways to deal with it. Identify, resolve and reach the destination of your desires; which, in the real context, is nothing but a peaceful and quiet mind. A quiet mind is always seeking a particular desired end result of practically every thought, word and action carried out – happiness!

Nothing wrong in desiring happiness, isn’t it? In fact, the natural inclination of each human being is to be happy; that’s his innate natural quality. Otherwise, why do we always necessarily want to be happy?Why do we feel the desperation to pull ourselves out from a sad state of mind? Have you ever met a person who doesn’t want to be happy; or, in other words, is truly happy being sad? Well, obviously not. So the message is loud and clear in front of us to take up the initiative to be happy and follow our natural instinct.

Does happiness exist?

Whatis happiness? Can we identify or isolate this feeling which keeps eluding us? Yet we keep reaching out for it. But the funny and most surprising thing, which you probably must have experienced, is that even when you have achieved or reached your goal which you had considered to make you happy; fails to do what it was expected to do. Either it doesn’t make you the ‘kind’ of happy that you expected it to, or that ‘happiness’ which you experienced is too short lived. And then you once again start your struggle to reach ‘your kind’ of happiness. You are bound to think that is happiness there anyway?

Some people believe that happiness is something one is born or gifted with,while some feel that a fortunate few get happiness in their lives. There are even a few who believe that some are destined to be happy while others are not. If you are one of those who think so, then you need to open a new door to your wisdom and realise that all your assumptions over these years perhaps have no relevance in the actual context of life. If you are ready to see things from another perspective and are ready to make some major changes in the way you handle yourself and your life; you are on the threshold which will show you your own life in a new and brighter beam of light, in other words – will make you happy.

What seems apparent to our mind is that happiness is to be achieved, attained from various factors which gather to form our world. In other words, we seek happiness from the world. We believe whatever our mind wants us to.So all our efforts are to look around and find happiness, because we aimlessly toil,but never reach our destination. Because what you are seeking is not where you are trying to find. You are seeking it around you, where as it lies within you.

Sad enough to be happy?

If you really want to be happy, look within; assess and contemplate – are you really that sad to want to be happy? Well, if you are, you would know; because then you would go ahead and engage yourself in everything that pulls you out from your unbearablemisery, which includes training your own mind, and widening your perspective of vision towards life, you will do everything.You will be in need to step out of your comfort level of your own thoughts and beliefs and find reasons of being happy than sad. But if you are not ready to make a change with the way you think, then perhaps the misery is still under your bearable limits.

After all, as it is said, life is a time-bound journey. Our lives are simply a time travel between birth and death. So where do you think is the time to sulk? There is not even enough time to be happy, an emotion you cherish, but which seems to be an “Endangered Emotion”on the verge of extinction. Where do you think you have the time to waste on being sad?

Life is a celebration.Pick up from where you left, start enjoying life the way it is, do not try to change or control anything or anyone, be happy to be alive, start being perpetually and helplessly happy. Trust me, you will not regret it.

 

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