Happiness: Lessons from a New Science - Essay Example

 Topic: Personal experience Do I think that I am a happy person overall? You ask me whether I am a happy person. I am not only a happy person, but permit me to assert in all humility that happiness is like me! Happiness is the state of mind. To gauge all the dimensions of happiness is impossibility. I understand the true meaning of happiness and therefore I am happy. My formula for happiness is to live life in its trials, tribulations, duty and beauty. The world cannot run on the concept of total happiness at all times. In the absence of total happiness, carry on with the available happiness. I count my blessings in life than curse what I am not endowed with. The wise saying goes, ‘It is better to deserve without receiving, than to receive without deserving.’ People have different yardsticks to measure happiness. To some exorbitant lifestyles like costly food items, latest apparel, bigger cars, posh houses, air-conditioned space, foreign holidays, shirking responsibility and buttering people to get fast benefits in life, are the factors related to happiness. But all these will provide fleeting happiness. I do not wish to knock at the wrong portals of happiness. The happiness of my concept is within the heart of each individual, and the concerned individual has to achieve it. No outside agency will provide happiness. Give up the negativities, confusion, and wrong ambitions. I thus tread on the true royal road to happiness. I am not a porter to carry the head-load of worries. I do my secular activities without any motivated desires and therefore, I am a happy person. When I feel sad, what I usually do to feel better? I feel sad, if I admit sadness within me. Basically, the root cause of our sadness, is our negativities, I know this fact well. I will not make special efforts to suppress my sadness. Let this phase of sadness come and pass over. Howsoever powerful may the waves, their real nature is mere water! Even when I go through the process of sadness, I know that it has got to be a temporary phase. Just as I see the change of seasons of Nature, I understand, this phase of sadness has to pave way for happiness. There have been occasions when I feel sad and I immediately revert to meditation and concentrate on the root cause of my sadness. Putting the mind in ‘solitary confinement’ for some time is the best option to lighten the stress part of the mind. I have a stock of good spiritual books and magazines and I try to read a few pages of them to divert my mind from the thoughts of sadness. We have an excellent neighborhood park and I move there to take a brisk walk for about 30-45 minutes and then relax sitting on the green carpet of grass. Some friends and acquaintances meet in the park and interaction with them lightens the burden of the mind and this exercise paves way for substitution of positive thoughts. The first few hours of the experience of sadness are tough and gradually those strong feelings get diluted and the mind reverts to its true nature of peace. Recollection of the event in my life when I was able to overcome my sadness As a young man I had offered my candidature for defense services for the post of Second Lieutenant. I cleared the written test, passed the first interview and failed in the final interview. My batch consisted of thirty candidates out of which only 4 were selected. That day I remained engulfed in sorrow and all my fond hopes of military service were dashed to the ground. But I still remember what the Major of the army selection board said in his farewell address to the rejected candidates. Looking straight in to our sullen faces he said, “All smart candidates! You will succeed elsewhere in life!” He was indeed prophetic. As for me I chose banking as my career and rose to become the Regional Manager of a top Commercial Bank. With this experience, I now know how to convert defeats into victories. Economic and power ambitions are good servants but they are bad masters. The assumption that a particular career will definitely contribute to the happiness of an individual is the wrong assumption. The best approach to challenge sadness is not to admit defeat. Happiness within is more important than happiness achieved through secular comforts. Happiness needs to be viewed from the angle of permanent peace. I have developed the positive attitude to look at the issues. There is a good and bright side about every sad event in life. What will I suggest to other people about happiness? Can they learn from me and my experiences? Happiness is contagious. I have learnt to be happy by listening to the experiences of happiness from others and therefore why not I share my happiness with you? You are welcome to share this treasure. One important point is, never compare your happiness with the happiness of others. Everyone one must weigh issues in one’s own scale of happiness. Normally people are unhappy because others are happy! Layard argues, “If people change their reference group upwards, this can seriously affect their happiness. There are many clear cases, where people became objectively better off but felt subjectively worse.”(p.45) Substantiating it further from the point of view of secular needs he remarks, “ Happiness depends only on your income relative to your income aspirations—and your income aspirations in turn depend heavily on the average income of the people where you live.”(p.46) Economic prosperity alone will not contribute to total happiness of an individual. One has to probe within, experience the spiritual realms to be happy in the real sense. Materialistic approach to the issues is the springboard of unhappiness. Following the moral and spiritual path is a tough option; to remain free from corruption viewed from any angle, is even tougher. But this is the best option as it is the oases of permanent happiness. Wise people say, pursuit of the path of true happiness is difficult; it is compared to walking on the razor’s edge. Moreover, perfect solution to achieve total happiness can only be given by those who have the direct experience of happiness. This again, concerns the realm of spirituality. Works Cited: Layard, Richard. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. Penguin Press HC, 2005. Read More