Pursuit of happiness

How do you measure happiness? What does it take for you to be happy? We all want to be happy, don’t we? But why is it that most of us are actually not happy at all, mostly frustrated or discontent in some way or the other? These questions have made me wonder for a long time. I have some analysis and some answers.

First question that you need to be asking yourself is, what is it that makes you happy? You may have different answers, like achieving some feat, winning a competition, being loved by someone, getting respect from others, being appreciated by others, getting a surprise, etc. Generally put, you like getting something good, whether it was what you wanted to get or something unexpected. Now to turn this question the other way – what is it that makes you unhappy? And the general answer, I think, would be to not get what you want. We all have wish-lists, or even ad-hoc desires, we also tend to build a lot of expectations from others and those others not having fulfilled the expectations they build also cause a lot of unhappiness.

What I think could be a fun experiment, is to try and bring in two paradigm shifts. One is to change the measure of our happiness, and second is to make a pain/hardship-list corresponding to the wish list.

As I have already discussed, the measure of happiness is usually with the subject being at the receiving end of something good. I see this as a very uncertain and illogical measure of happiness. Let’s face the reality; the only thing under anyone’s control is that person himself/herself. Everything outside of the self is independent and beyond control. Then why peg the measure of happiness on such conditions that are beyond control? I believe, being happy is just as much in self-control as being not lazy is. How about pegging happiness based on your own actions than that of others? How about measuring happiness in terms of giving rather than receiving? For me, happiness is making others happy. I wouldn’t say that I am happy because I got a prize (for example), but I’ll say that I am happy that I could make others happy by getting a prize. Why do you think dogs are loved so much? They’d make you happy, even if you don’t make them happy. And even if one were to think of a quid pro quo, I’d say happiness is initiating the bargain, to give first, even while being unsure of the possibility of getting back.

The same paradigm shift goes well for all the other measures of happiness. One of the biggest problem plaguing the Indian society is that people expect others to respect them without respecting others first. There is always a one-way respect channel that exists in the society based on hierarchies. People generally expect respect because they link it to status than to actions. Which is why we have the crimes against women (most of the rapes in central India happen to vindicate the loss of honor of men), the fucked up families living in hollow happiness, leaders of the country who polarize the population, and a quasi-state of nature; hypersensitive people taking offence at the drop of a hat, and a regressive society that would never move on and keep pace with the current time.

 It is as simple as commanding respect instead of expecting respect. If I don’t respect someone, then I don’t command respect towards that person but at the same time I shouldn’t expect any respect from that person. At the same time, if I am enraged and hurt that someone doesn’t respect me, then maybe I should introspect whether I have deserved respect by way of my actions or not. After all, what can I do other than to control my own actions?

Therefore, one simple change is to just peg your happiness to your own actions than to the actions of others. Any sort of love, respect, or care that is demanded, extorted or snatched can never give true happiness. For me at least, what gives true happiness and consequently, true sorrow, are my own actions; what I give to the world and to myself, not what the world gives to me. This way, I can manage to minimize my expectations, and yet be desirous of what I want, not from others, but from myself.

This leads me to the second thing, which can give unhappiness even if you think about happiness as giving – that is to not be able to achieve what you want. In fact, with the changed first paradigm, it would read as ‘to not be able to do all that it takes to get what you want’. This is a major source of unhappiness at times, because very often I would want myself to do a lot of things for my own happiness as well as others’ happiness, but end up quitting mid-way, or be unprepared to go through the journey. One of the worst situations I have been is to want to achieve, to be somebody, without deserving to be so. Here, I source the second paradigm shift to an article I had read on the internet.

We all want almost the same set of things, like money, a happy family, success in career, etc. But what we don’t realize is the substantive equality argument that exists in nature. To achieve the same thing, different people have to go through different levels of hardships. Although the law seeks to bring everyone on the same starting line, that is utopia. Caste based discrimination aside; every human being is different in the appetite for pain, determination, and priorities in life. What it takes to get to a certain place is what the focus ideally should be rather than the destination. When you go out to bat, if you keep saying that you want to score a century without the will to take on the bowlers of the opposing side, the nature of the pitch, a hostile crowd, sledging from the other team, and your own weaknesses, then you will end up being perpetually disappointed and under-confident.  Therefore, this paradigm shift requires me to make a pain/hardship-list, so that I positively say that I want to go through times of tension, uncertainty, take some hits, take a lot of shit, test my hope and determination against mighty cynicism, go through all my weaknesses to overcome them. After all, we don’t just get things in life, we need to deserve them, and for that, we need to go through a lot of bumpy rides. The question is, how much would you rather enjoy the experiences of a challenge than to sit at home, curled up, in the comfort of your safety and disappointments. Simply put, this is just the practical application of ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst’.

With this I end this thought which had been really long due in my head. Yet another post with the hope to make the readers happy in a sustainable manner, and relieve the world of some hopeless losers.