The Pursuit of Happiness

What exactly is happiness? I still have to come across it. You achieve something. That makes you happy, but can you be happy for the rest of your life based on just one achievement? Does contentment and happiness mean the same? Why is that we always crave to be happy and still cant be? Trust me, there has not been a single time when I have been 100% happy. Maybe when the time I was in love and we were together I was the happiest. But that was not true happiness, because I was so damn happy that time that I thought if this doesn't last for a lifetime I'm gone. Something has always been there to keep the happiness incomplete.

Has there been a single person on earth who is completely happy? They maybe rich and famous, but does that make them happy? They say "Money cant buy Happiness", I totally agree with it. Maybe you see that chasing money for greed is destructive, but isn't it equally damaging to have such a powerful instrument in your hands while pretending it has no importance? Yeah money is important. It helps you get things you have craved for. I can shop away my entire month's pay in a day. Yeah, it makes me happy, but for a day or two maybe. Or maybe you can spend away to glory one night, treating your friends. It does make them happy, but do you feel the same the next day? Happiness according to me is just momentary.Well, money can help put the right conditions in place. Is it easier to be happy if you have food to eat? Whether you call that buying happiness or not, the understanding is more important than the argument. You want to lead a compromised life, then good for you.

Happiness is all a question of attitude. Study has shown that married people tend to be happier than single ones, though the singles seem to be out having all the fun. Fun is short-lived, while the security of a happy marriage is very fulfilling. This does not apply if you are unhappily married though. Singles are far happier than those trapped in unhappy marriages. So how happy are you really? While we are always told to count are blessings, we don't really do so, and even if we do, we don't put any value or price on our blessings. Having people around you, may make you happy. Having someone to go back to, knowing that no matter what happens there will always be one person for you. Yeah that maybe happiness. But there is always an inbuilt fear that, that may not last long.

It is a fact though money may not make you very happy. It is a part of happiness and one of the biggest things to survive in this world. Because though we may deny it, a majority of this world believes that money is everything and unfortunately in this era it may just be true. Money can help you afford nicer things, but it cannot make you happier. True, abject poverty can be depressing. You cannot expect to find happiness if you are struggling to make ends meet, don't have enough money for food or shelter, cannot keep warm during the winter or cool during the summer. But if you are earning enough, have a comfortable lifestyle, have a family that loves you, are healthy and intelligent, count yourself lucky. This may just be the happiness you're looking for.

If you want proof just think back to a time when you got something you wanted. Perhaps it was admission to a good college or a great job or the guy/girl you always wanted. You were on a high when you got it, and that high lasted for how long? Weeks, maybe months. Then you started coming back to earth, and a couple of years later you are once again sitting with the rest of the office gang grumbling about the bad work conditions, your boss and nasty co-workers or the fact that your better half is not able to give you enough time. It's the same with money. A sudden windfall will give you a high, but once your feet find the ground, you're back to square one. If you get rich by commuting long hours to your office, working late into the night and neglect your friends and partner, you will find that you are not that happy as a person who may make less money than you do, but who spends time with his family, goes for more vacations with them and taking life easy every now and then. Is it that easy to do it? Any person now would prefer the former to the latter. Take me for example, I love doing creative stuff. Art, fashion and writing are my passions. But where am I today. I'm a techie doing some bullshit coding day in and day out. But still, I wake up in the morning and don my best clothes and move off to do it. It wouldn't take me a second to throw away all this and start looking for something that I actually want. But no, somehow I'm content with whats happening. Its paying me enough to take care of myself and at the end of the day that's what counts. Contentment. Not happiness. Looks like I myself have answered my question put earlier.

The experience of happiness is something like , "I feel good emotionally" or "I look great today". For some its like "I'm so happy today". Well, what about the other days? People use different terms to describe what feels good for them. For someone it might be excitement, passion, adventure, fulfillment, freedom, feeling fully alive with inspiration and joy. For another it might be more peaceful, content, capable, hopeful, satisfied, and a comfortable feeling. Whatever you call it, it just feels damned good. Our natural state of being is to be happy. Atleast thats what we hope for. When you remove all the uncomfortable emotions and crappy feelings we humans experience (and they are numerous), you're left with happiness. Easier said than done. Here's a famous quote by a famous personality.

- Abraham Lincoln

True it is. But do people make up their minds that they are happy. Do they sit back and say that this is the most happiest I can ever get. No way.

My bookmark says, the three grand essentials of happiness are, Something to do, Someone to Love, and Something to hope for. Well if these are the necessities to be happy then I'm not even halfway there.

Some people look for happiness in pleasure. Happiness is not pleasure although they may mean the same to some and actually can appear similar. Pleasure is enjoyment of an outside stimuli. Something you look for in the outside world. You may find pleasure in buying a new car, or going on vacation, or having friends over for dinner, or having sex, or doping, and many other things. This is what you might enjoy experiencing. Pleasure requires an external stimuli for you to experience it. Without that you are back to square one. Happiness does not need anyone or anything. Happiness is a belief about oneself and the outside world. You can be doing something you normally experience as pleasurable but not be happy! Pleasure is born from the external world, happiness is born from where? Ourselves I reckon. Its all in our mind as Abe Lincoln says. I guess its up to us to give birth to it and find it. Just one question. HOW??


  1. me too.... HOW?

    pretty good and pretty long too:-)
    I think,I need to learn,how to be content with my job from you.Content,not happy.though I find it to be incredibly hard to be content itself...
    Dont you think,by just being content,the world is being deprived of all your talents..
    Hypothetically speaking...suppose Steven speilberg had to mop floors for a living...sure,it feeds him and maybe he can buy a few trinklets he likes, and over time he learns to be content with his job,and Life.The world would have surely gained a sweeper,but would have lost a great director who keeps his audience enthralled,and that is infinitely more tragic...

    In a similar way..if you were NOT content ,maybe one day,you might launch your own fashion line that would rival GUCCI(of course,i am wildly exaggerating:-) and i might seriously rival JK Rowling(same thing applies here too!;-)
    but seriously speaking,dont you think ,by being code jocks working in a sweatshop,we will slog away our lives and die practically unknown...??with the world never have been richer since we were in it... all we get is some superficial praise from a manager(who will also die unknown)

    In office,I see a lot of average people,who would have thrived and been successful in a different environment,A lot of potential musicians,writers,singers, cricketers,soap opera stars(u know who;-)
    A vast majority of people sadly never get a chance to unwrap the gifts they were born with and this really gets me.Everytime.

  2. Long indeed... you should co-author a blog with me someday :-). True, if we were not content, we wud have famous rivals.., but are we truly content? atleast wit me i'm not too sure that im actually content or that im forcing myself to be to camouflage the unhappiness..You know my happiness revolves around what, or rather whom...

    Regarding the world being deprived of my talent...I'm happy with my small world recognisin my talent, which includes you ofcourse :-) (i mean it..!!)

    Yeah I(we) may die unkonown, but in the end i(we) know that we have made a difference to atleast one person in the world.. Call it being content here and not happy. And regarding the soap opera star...........No Comments..!!!

