‘Being Happy’ is a challenge of Today’s Era

In the olden days due to limited wants and simple life style, people didn’t link up their happiness to their material possessions and they used to enjoy the simplest and free pleasures of life. Since their lives were less intensive, they were able to follow more closely their internal clock. So they used to lead very happy, healthy and contented lives.

In recent decades the pace of life has accelerated dramatically and science and technology made available lots of material things. Most of the   people always have a bucket list of things to buy! And, unfortunately, their happiness is always linked to buying those things.

Why is happiness a challenge?

Every child is nothing but a bundle of joys, but as we grow up, somewhere, we lose those joys. A child smiles 400 times a day. When a child grows up and becomes an adolescent, he smiles only 17 times a day, and when he becomes an adult, he smiles occasionally and that too when someone else smiles.

Is happiness receding from modern society as we grow older or is modern society receding from it? Is it becoming more elusive to us or are we becoming blinder to it? Is it becoming more difficult to attain or are we setting the bar too high? Is happiness on the same vanishing path as the panda bear and the rhinoceros?

Wherever we turn we see a world that is discontent, grasping and floundering. We see a world at war with itself, a population of carnivorous shoppers, and people with excess attitude, explosive tempers, and insatiable drives to acquire "things." What has happened to us? What are we becoming? Where is the happiness?

To answer the questions, first we have to find out what is happiness.

  

What is happiness?

“Happiness” is not only hard to measure, but it is also difficult to singularly define. You can’t define happiness without using a synonym for happiness, and you can’t interpret it to everyone’s satisfaction.

Psychologists define a happy person as someone who experiences frequent positive emotions, such as joy, interest, and pride, and infrequent (though not absent) negative emotions, such as sadness, anxiety and danger. Happiness has also been said to relate to life satisfaction, appreciation of life, moments of pleasure, but overall it has to do with the positive experience of emotions.

The key to these definitions is that positive emotions do not indicate the absence of negative emotions. A "happy person" experiences the spectrum of emotions just like anybody else, but the frequency by which they experience the negative ones may differ. It could be that "happy people" don't experience as much negative emotion because they process it differently or they may find meaning in a way others have not. Nobody is immune to life's stressors, but the question is whether you see those stressors as moments of opposition or moments of opportunity.

“Happiness really is an inside job,” Los Angeles-based therapist Sarah Schewitz adds. “You can change the way you think, you can change the way you feel, and be happier.”

The philosopher Albert Camus put it, "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?"

What prevents us being happy?

It may be tempting to think that happiness is achieved by solving life’s problems. But if you wait to be happy until all your problems are solved you will never be happy, because when today’s problems are gone others will take their place. If you are going to live happily you have to live with at least some of your problems.

Living happily depends mainly on your inner life, meaning your thoughts, emotions, and desires. Happiness is about what you think and believe, how you feel, how problems affect you. This may sound obvious, but often we focus instead on our external lives, on getting and spending and “having fun” and then wonder why we are not happy. But it’s when our inner lives are serene that we are happiest – and this is inner peace.

The difficulty is that our inner lives are based on patterns and habits. You don’t choose, occasion by occasion, how you respond inside. This happens and you feel angry; that happens and you feel sad. Because of these habits, events don’t necessarily leave you with inner peace.

If happiness is a destination you are waiting to arrive at then you could be in for a long ride. The assumption here for people is that happiness comes from outside of you. While there are obviously things that happen in your life that make you feel either happy or unhappy, the fact is that these experiences come and they go. The better equipped you become at handling the events that cause you stress the less impact it will have on your health and happiness.

Until you learn to handle this, your emotional well-being and happiness will be in the hands of the events that happen to you. The more power your events hold over you to control how you think and feel about life, the less room there is for you to be happy and at peace.

The mindset of waiting for happiness is a never-ending cycle. You get a better job and then immediately start thinking about what your next promotion will be. You get a nicer house and immediately start looking at how nice your neighbours’ houses are, or the faults in the house you have. You try to change your spouse or kids, and if that works (good luck), you’ll find other things about them that need to be changed. It keeps going, until you die.

Accumulating things never made any one permanently happy. When you buy something you desire very much, you may be very happy for a very few days. How long one can feel very happy for having bought a new iPhone or latest model car? After a month or so it becomes very routine possession we’ve and the novelty wears off as well as the happiness associated with the buying of the same.

Barry Schwartz, in his book “The Paradox of Choice”, aptly said, “The more options you have, the higher your expectations; and when your expectations are sky-high, you’re destined for disappointment... no matter how good things get”

How to be happy in today’s Era?

We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we're frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be happier when they are. After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We'll certainly be happy when they're out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire.

The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway.

Alfred D. Souza said, "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

This perspective can help you to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with...and remember that time waits for no one.

So, stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you're off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you've had a drink, until you've sobered up, until you die, until you're born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others."

To lead a real happy and contended life we should understand the truths in following major aspects of our life:

Values: Values are essentially what we must care about most in life. They provide us with motivation, they give us energy and/or calm us down, and they give us a sense of fulfillment. Values are what drive you toward what it is you want out of life. When your actions and thoughts are in line with your values, you are able to be your authentic self more easily. Being your authentic self is ultimately going to provide you with a greater sense of happiness.

Self image: We compare ourselves with the images in our mind of perfection — movie stars, models in magazines, other people who seem to have it all together — and we can never measure up to those perfect images. But those images are not real. They are an imagined ideal. Even the beautiful people have bad days and feel flabby, and if you take away their photoshopped and heavily-made-up facade, you see that they are every bit as human as you are. Even the people who seem successful, living exciting lives — they have the same self-doubts you have. So if they don’t live up to this ideal image, why should you? And even if they did (which they don’t), why would you need to? When we let go of this image of perfection, we realize that we are already exactly who we should be. And then, all our need for moret, and all the activity and effort and pain that implies, fades away. We are happy with ourselves, and nothing else is needed.

Relationships: If you are true to yourself, you are more likely to be a good friend, partner, and parent. You are more likely to be happy and friendly and loving, more likely to be as accepting of others as you are of yourself. Relationships improve, especially when others learn to be content with themselves, from your example.

Health: Much of our culture’s unhealthiness comes from unhappiness — eating junk food to give ourselves comfort and relieve stress, not exercising because we think we can’t (because we have a bad self-image), being glued online because we think we might miss something if we turn off the computer or iPhone. When you realize that you aren’t missing anything, and you don’t need junk food to be happy, and you are good enough to exercise, you can slowly return to health.

Possessions: The overload of possessions in our lives comes from unhappiness — we buy things because we think they’ll give us comfort, coolness, happiness, security, an exciting life. When we become content with ourselves and our lives, we realize none of that is necessary, and we can start getting rid of these extraneous crutches.

Busy-ness: Much of our busy-ness comes from fear that we should be doing more, that we might be missing out, that we aren’t enough already. But we are enough, and we don’t always need more, and we aren’t missing out So we can let go of a lot of unnecessary activity, and just focus on doing what we love, and give ourselves the space to enjoy a contented happy life.

Acceptance: Most of the time we are not happy because we want to change the outside world. Some people will never behave the way you want, no matter what you do. Everyone’s nature and thinking is the result of the environment and conditions they have lived in. Everyone will be right in their own eyes no matter how bad they do. The only thing you can change is your thinking and accept the people the way they are. Be with people who make you feel better and stay away from the ones that depress you. The only time a person will change is when he himself wants to. The Earlier you accept, the happier you will be.

Gratefulness: We are always complaining about things that we don’t have and when we acquire them, there are only few moments of joy and we again start wining about more things and the cycle goes on. Take some time and be thankful for what you have. Some might be dying for the food that you are disrespecting. There are children who have never seen their parents and don’t know who they are. You are blessed that you have them, spend time with them. Just imagine once, how will life be without them. Someone might be dying just to have a sight of how this world looks like and you don’t ever thank God that he has blessed you with good health and properly functioning organs. And this list goes on…..

If you start counting, you will find lots of things in your life that you are blessed with but don’t appreciate. It is wise to remember- Happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they make the best of everything.

Judgement: Another big source of discontentment is trying to control the people around us. We have standards or ideals for what we believe is right or good, and then we try to impose our standards on our spouse, children, family, and friends. We want them to think the way we think, believe what we believe, dress the way we think is appropriate, and spend money on things that are our priorities. When they don't comply, we get upset and judge them as wrong or bad. Allow those around you to be themselves. Stop judging and accept them to keep your happiness.

       

Conclusion:

As it is rightly said, ‘Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it’. Well, life depends upon choices. And the choices results in the level of happiness. So the art of being happy isn't hard to master even in today’s era. If we remember the great truths of life and act accordingly every moment of our life, happiness will remain our natural state of being.

N.GANESHAN

(First Prize winning article in our Vijaya Bank house magazine’s last contest)