Happiness doubles and grief becomes half talking to our close ones

A Swedish Proverb says—‘Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.’ If this proverb is really true than there is no greater virtue in the world than sharing of your joy and sorrow because sharing increases your joy and decreases your sorrow. Since we all wish to maximize our happiness and minimize our sorrows, sharing of feelings seem to be the best way to live the life. However, we don’t really see this happening in the real world. It is because no wisdom is true all the time on all the people in all the situations.

The wise people have also taught us not to share our pains with others. The famous poet Rahimdas said, Rahiman nij man ki vyatha, man hi rakho goye. Suni athilaihen log sab baanti na laihen koi. English Translation : You must keep your pains to your heart and not tell others. Others will only laugh at your suffering, but none will share it. It is the sign of wisdom and maturity to avoid sharing your pain and misery to others because people are not interested in sharing your pain.

Your pain is not really reduced by sharing with others unless these people share very close relationship with you. However, when they share your burden, they also expect you to share their pain. When you have many close people with whom you have shared your pain, you also have to suffer for their pain. Hence, sharing of pain may actually multiply your pain in the long run instead of reducing it.

While people are not interested in sharing your pain as they are having enough of their own, they don’t mind sharing your happiness if that makes them happy too. For example, if you wish to throw a party for your friends to celebrate your achievement, they would be happy to join you. However, at the same time, they may also be feeling jealous of your achievement. Only those people who are directly benefited from your achievements (like your family members) really feel happy because they can hope to share your achievement for life. However, in modern times, when even spouses are competing with each other, you can’t be sure if the success of one spouse would necessarily make the other one happy.

So what is the truth? Whether happiness is real only when shared or when it is enjoyed alone? My view is that both statements are true in the proper perspective. You enjoy your life more, when you enjoy your day as well as your nights, when you enjoy your work as well as your rest. In the same way, your happiness is more real and true when, you can share it with others. You can also enjoy it alone. There is no joy in life if you have no one to share your feelings. There is no joy in life if you can’t enjoy your happiness alone. The real joy always comes from inside and then spread outside. When you can integrate your inner world with outer world, you enjoy true and lasting happiness.

I have a friend. One fine day, I was sharing her about how happy I am these days. She doesn’t listen instead She starts talking about how miserable her life is. She doesn’t stop there. She also says things like - life will never get better for her like me. She will always suffer. All of a sudden, I feel I lack something too in my life. I start seeing all the negative things in my life and forget about the happiness I was feeling 10 minutes back.

Moral of the story: Don’t share your every happiness with others around you. Sometimes, you never know what they are going through and how will they react with you sharing your happy moments. So many times I have observed that digesting personal good news like getting a new job, getting married or a love relationship brings more love and peace in life.

Imagine you were ripped from oblivion with no say whatsoever, you are sent to school with no say whatsoever, you are forced to work with no say whatsoever (unless you’re lucky enough to get welfare), and if you try to leave you will be abused by psychiatrists “for your own good”, with no say whatsoever. Your life is not your own, you’re just being forced to inhabit a body that is led by compulsion You are compelled by obligations, you are compelled by your situation, you are compelled by the way genetics affected your brain, you are compelled by the interests and feelings you picked up and didn’t choose, you are limited by what your brain is able to think of.

You do not have free will. If you did, fields like psychology would be completely impossible because there would be no trends in human behaviour, because trends occur as a result of common causation. Your suffering is meaningless, accountable to absolutely nothing, accomplishing fundamentally nothing because the destination is the same no matter which path you take: death. The dissolution of your consciousness back into the shelter of oblivion is the ultimate fate of all of us, unless we are unfortunate enough for a supernatural power to exist which commands control of our consciousness in which case we are probably doomed to repeat this existence forever.

You do not exist. Everything you identify with is the result of something that is not you. You are an elaborate and complex calculation determined by prior conditions, and you are barred from correcting this mistake by the possessive nature of other people, who fundamentally see you as the utilitarian equivalent of an ATM. All love is transactional, even if the currency is just the triggering of happy chemicals in your head. You might as well not exist because you are already dead.

Happiness comes from inside. Happiness is an emotion. You feel it. Happiness is a cultivated habit. The more you find happiness the happier you grow to be. We have to feel happy to be truly happy. You cannot fake happiness for very long. At one stage the stress of faking bursts out as anger or tears. So yes, you can be happy in a crowd, in a group of known people and even if alone. Sometimes say in a movie theatre you are happy even amidst strangers. You are unknown to others yet you are happy if the movie is good and you are in a happy mood.

As you start in life you actually start with numerous real friends. Please do not count virtual friends as friends. As you travel through life you lose many of your friends. In some situations there is a absolutely nobody to share your happiness. Or your kind of joy. Some may find your joy absurd or they may feel jealous of you or even pass negative comments. In such an environment you hide your joy, nevertheless you are happy and enjoy your happiness. So yes, you can be happy sometimes with out anybody to share it with too. A few such examples. When you enjoy a promotion with good salary raise. When you go for a nature walk alone enjoying the cool breeze, the morning birds and greenery. When you churn out a perfect dish esp a biryani. When you get that gold medal in spite of not being the favourite for that sport. Cheers!