Pursuit of Happiness

I am at a small remote village of about 100 houses, in middle of western ghats of India, surrounded by mountains tall enough to block any cell phone network. I trekked up onto one of the mountains so that I could post this article before going back into blissful disconnected world. As I spend few days at this beautiful, lush green valley of coconut groves and water bodies, I have been pondering & reflecting upon the year went by, wanted to share some of the thoughts I stumbled upon. This probably is the most sought-after human quest, ranks only after the desire to “live forever”. The idea of staying happy & being content during every moment of their life has been dwelled upon, was researched by countless research scholars, gurus. After achieving everything there’s to be achieved, emperors were intrigued by its nature, and the fact that “something is missing”.

To make the things simpler for us, many of the researchers have summarized the approach as below.

Real sense of happiness is being in the process of achieving something.” It’s being in the process of achieving happiness, for happiness is always a relative term and each occurrence of happiness comes with an expiry date.?That’s why it’s a pursuit and rarely attainment.

Below are some of my thought reflections on attempt to embark on this profound journey.

Expand your horizon:

Literal meaning of horizon is a "the line at which the earth's surface and the sky appear to meet". And another meaning, most relevant for us is "The limit of a person's knowledge, experience, or interest"

If you observe any large human creation – An ancient fort, historic temple, or a monument, it is generally situated at an elevated landscape like a mountain, next to a river or on a seashore. For a they are resultant of an ambition by a dreamer, ambition always finds the tall, vast landscapes interesting, since vastness inspires & expands the imagination. Vastness gives access to expanded horizon…

Expand your horizon, among other things, you might even find your purpose…

Travel, Read, meet people… All with neutral perspective,?

This Earth has been around for about 4 billion years. Humans have been around for nearly 4 million years. For thousands of years, human establishments have developed in isolation entirely different from each other giving birth to disparate civillizations, languages, customs and more distinctively, beliefs.

Different beliefs have given rise to ambitions of different types. Some went in search for more land, some built things that have lasted millenniums, others went in soul searching and wrote down timeless principles. Before they did that, they travelled, as much as they could at their time.

Expect less: Expectation is the source of most of disappointment in the world. Be it be food that you didn’t like in a restaurant, or the service by the waiter or aspects of relationship.

Things and people have been the way they were before you walked into the restaurant. Its your expectations of how they need to be, is a filter that’s applied and the lens you have that causes disappointment. The moment you realize this fact, you can modify the lens to walk in and walk out with same or better mood irrespective of how things are in the restaurant and then in this world at large. This doesn’t mean you are passive and self-indulged and can’t share the feedback to make things better.

It means that you are responding and not reacting. The fact that you can choose your response to events in life gives such a great feeling of being in command. Being the captain of your own life, which is how it was meant to be.

Have commitment but not Attachment:

Whenever we create something or contribute, enhance or just to take part of, we tend to associate with it and create inherent attachment. A Job, a building or a relationship. Attachment create sense of ownership and lead to fear of loosing.

Remember that we don’t live forever, and hence we don’t own anything. Our days here are numbered, we are guests of tiny period. To put things into perspective, if we lived for 100 years, its 0.00000077% of age of this universe, which is 13 billion years. The whole human race has only been around during most recent 0.0077% of timeline of this universe.

We are certainly here to make a mark, but through mindful thoughts & actions, not as a machine of reactions.

The Paradox of perspective:

When we meet people or face situations, we tend to judge and create opinions quickly, upon which our further feelings & actions heavily depend on.

At the first sight, we don’t know what the person has been through in their life. We don’t know why things are the way they are in its entirety.?

Always be neutral of people’s actions and behaviours, until you create a deeper understanding of people & situations by asking questions, inquiring and more importantly just by listening more.

Attainment of self-awareness:

Attaining self-awareness is probably third most important quest for humans and comes right before the second most important quest which is achieving happiness & contentment. Practicing the observation and being aware of oneself in most common situations until it becomes part of your natural self and subconscious mind can create self-awareness.

Creation of self-awareness is a deliberate, conscious, and persistent effort done over months & years to only realise that knowing yourself is the most complicated of all things there to be known. Knowing thy-self is exponentially more complex than knowing the universe itself. But when an effort is made, it’s possible to achieve certain degree of awareness to achieve whatever you put your mind in achieving.?

Why does it matter to be happy:

You might ask, why all this effort. Why don’t I just live by the moment and experience, react, and just go through my life. Some of you smarter ones might even say, being so calculative about our feelings could make us emotionless robots, we are humans and meant to have feelings and reactions, that’s what makes us humans! This is right thinking, just not entirely.

There’s fine line between “reacting to life’s events where life just happens to you” and “responding thoughtfully with poised mindset where you are in driving seat of your life”. And that is what will keep you content & happy to the most part if not all.

Concluding it:

Does it mean, should we be able to achieve happiness in every situation? Not really, by no means that should be our quest not its possible. Our constant effort & endeavour should be to choose our responses in most situations, but then also be active contributor through responding and acting to make it a better world. Step 1 is to create self-awareness of your behavior in real-time during a situation. Step 2 is to create a stand that’s optimal for that situation and step 3 is to choose a response and choose how you feel. This is a process and there’s no 100% achievement in this journey. But I have seen & met individuals who have been able to practice this so effectively that responses to regular life events are part of their subconscious now and they choose subconsciously. This makes them poised, centered and most importantly happy.

At the end, a counterintuitive & controversial statement which I truly believe in is “Happiness is a Choice”. You can choose happiness anywhere, anytime and stay in pure bliss.

Wishing us all an amazing 2024 ahead in a most pleasant, happier and exciting world! Cheers !!