Aristotle rightly said that happiness belongs to the self sufficient.
It is a given fact that most of our initiatives are incomplete; be it our social, professional or personal commitments. What is needed is a total round up – where every initiative is not procrastinated upon but completed. That is the key to happiness. Our being is starving due to the endless materialistic rat race and in doing so we have lost touch with ourselves. Currently, the sole motive of our actions is gratification which is programmed by the information overload that our senses are subject to. We are born to be happy and that is the inbuilt default settings of the Almighty. There exists a strong antivirus within that can remove the Trojan horses of our mental hard disk. It is the same as lighting a torch to dispel darkness. The core purpose is to transition from sadness to happiness and from happiness to bliss. The happy natural state can only be reached if we learn to live in the present. We must understand the power of ‘now’ and to do this we need to accept our situation in totality without any regrets. Acceptance is like sowing the seeds of happiness. When there is acceptance, one is free from the past and the future and is in tune to receive the signals of divinity.
Understanding the core purpose of all our initiatives leads to a deeper knowledge about ourselves. There is a single agenda behind every dream, thought, hope and action and that is happiness. It’s different from ‘pleasure’ which is contingent on time, place, object and the dynamics of nature. Happiness, on the other hand, is unconditional and is accompanied by a profound sense of serenity, fulfillment and well being. Why, then, has happiness not touched our being? The only reason I can think of is that our receptive senses reside in the head and the jacketed heart. The senses drag us in to a competitive living condition rather than a stress free holistic cooperative living condition. The closed heart does not let any room for passion, love, and creativity to express themselves. Marinating life in happiness is our primary motive where every moment is enjoyed to the fullest and this is happniomics.
In search of happiness we often follow trajectories that make us feel good momentarily, but once the reason is gone, our excitement ends. True happiness can be achieved when one is happy without reasons, happy for the sake of happiness. The moment an act is done as per our desire we are happy but that doesn’t last long.
Happiness is a subjective term and may mean different things to different individuals. The resultant effect is the same though: the fine interwoven matrix of love on which life rests is a continuous pursuit for happiness. Happiness has no ‘why’ but an ‘I’ in the middle standing tall. The ‘I’ in happiness means that it’s not possible to be happy unless I really want happiness to enter my life.
To sum up the best vitamin to be a happy person is B1 (be one).
The writer is a research scholar by profession working at CDRI Lucknow, a freelancer and poet by passion.