Understanding happiness is an important life skill. Science and Psychology of happiness is very much centered around the realisation of self contentment, self fulfilment and self satisfaction.
Unlike sensory pleasure; which is momentary, happiness dwells in you so long as it is nourished by factors that support it and nurture it.
Happiness May Come in Many Different Ways.
Happiness is very abstract thing. Understanding happiness is a subjective experience. Happiness can be found in many different ways. It may be sometimes a gift, sometimes a choice and sometimes a creation.
When your job, your decisions, your actions result in self satisfaction, self fulfilment and self contentment, you experience happiness.
When your relationship with your friends and loved ones, are good and smooth you feel happiness.
Also, when you with your hard work smooth away the hardship of life, you win and create happiness.
And, of course, when your efforts bring smile on the faces of distressed persons; and when you create and promote greenery on the face of earth, you create happiness.
Having Happiness and Experiencing Happiness Are Two Different Things.
Barring a few exceptions, there are elements of happiness in some form or the other, in everyone’s life. They are there, but we don’t pay attention to them.
My housemaid is a village woman. Her sources of income include farm labour, paid domestic help at households and share cropping – a quite subsistence economy.
I always noticed her inartificial, spontaneous giggles and laughter, while she is in conversations with my wife, in the kitchen. ”How happy she appears,” I am amazed. Despite being economically more better off than her; I hardly remember when did I have this kind of spontaneous laughter. She is storehouse of happiness, while I feel deficit of it.
I tried to analyse this situation. And, I ended up with conclusion that my mental bottlenecks and bags of worries had taken hold of me; not letting me recognise my positive side, where I am rich.
High expectation, social comparison, stress and pressure completely blind us to see the elements of happiness available in our life.
For example, culture of consumerism and individualism in western societies, has led them to a situation where people have insatiable hunger for material possession and status achievements. This lack of contentment with what they own, has led them to a situation where they are shrouded with sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction.
Similarly, social comparison with people who show off their richness; leads to feeling of inadequacy, envy and low self esteem.
Fast paced and competitive nature of many developed societies world wide has created a crisis of achieving balance between work, family, social life and personal well being.
Thus in between various cogs of expectation and competition, our tiny happiness is getting crumbled. We are unable to see the elements of happiness lying around us.
Happiness and Its Absence – A Reality of Life.
Life is not like a steady straight path. It curves both ways, what we call positive and negative phases.
To the people with deeper level of awakening, these ups and downs together compose a complete cycle called life. They realise that happiness and sadness can not be divorced from each other. They together form a aggregate, called life.
When the sources of happiness are to your side, you feel relaxed and comforted. The thought of loosing them gives you worries, anxiety and stress.
So What If Happiness Is Transient?
You, sure, would have realised that some of your happiness in life are also accompanied with elements like self satisfaction, fulfilment and contentment. These elements are fundamentals of enduring happiness.
Self satisfaction, self fulfilment and self contentment when generated through hard work are imperishable. They become a secondary source of happiness which is going to stay with you forever.
These attributes are born only when your deeds and actions are true, pure and justified and have approval of your inner conscience.
Even in bad times this feel of self satisfaction, self fulfilment and self contentment will bring calm, peace and smile on your face. You are a ever happy person.
Go For Activities That Bring You Joy of Satisfaction.
Realising that our life holds value and purpose, we must try to pursue such activities in our day to day life that holds value for us. These may include:
- Helping your mother meet her old siblings, or take her to her parents place. Recently I had been to my maternal grand parents’ village, to attend a marriage ceremony. The groom was in the third generation of my mother side. My mom couldn’t have gone there for some reasons. While returning from there, they, as a return gift, gave me cloths for my mother. For my mother, these cloths now hold an emotional value, coming from a place where she was born and brought up, reminding her own roots. And for me, my this visit brings me immense satisfaction, when I notice happiness in my mother’s nostalgic eyes for these clothes.
- Volunteering in cleaning up the park or religious place in your neighborhood.
- Volunteering at dog shelter.
- Helping a troubled person earn his/her living.
- Buying local produce from artisans.
- Visiting new places that add to your experiences and values.
- Listening the folk songs around you and trace the elements of your Village culture under its veneer.
List is almost endless. But you can sure mark and tune yourself with such activities that resonate with you and make you feel happy and satisfied.