Random Thoughts on Random Words - Day 8 Happiness

Courtesy: Image by shekharchopra85 from Pixabay

It was the year 1981 or was it 1982? I was a young management trainee  at VISL Bhadravati.  I overheard my DGM tell his colleague  in the lobby - " I thought when I buy my car I will be happy, then when we built our house I believed I will be happy... but..."  The words didn't mean much to me at that time.or rather I did not  understand  the depth of  what he was talking about. At that point of time, we had just joined our first job-  Enjoying the process of  fitting in,  and having a bachelor status without  a  care in the world was itself  a matter of  "happiness".  

I guess in earlier times, we did not elaborately plan to be happy.  We were busy living our life and it had some happy moments, just as there were difficult moments. There is this  famous quote which says "Life is neither a bed of roses nor one of thorns. It is what we make of it."  The quote tends to suggest that happiness is a state of mind. If we want to be grumpy and complain, we can focus on the thorns and be unhappy. We have the choice instead to focus on the roses and be happy. 

I remember studying in  high school, an essay written by novelist D.H. Lawrence. His father was working in a  mine and they lived in the coal mining town of Eastwood Nottinghamshire. Lawrence recollects that the life of the mining community was simple. Although, the actual working conditions in the mine were tough, they were happy to come back in the evening to a few drinks  and some dancing in the weekends. This was enough to keep them happy. Social workers visiting  the area, would ask them if they were happy. If the answers was "Yes" the good Samaritans would take  pains to explain in detail why they shouldn't be happy and made them aware of the hardships they were undergoing. Thus it was a situation of the visitors manufacturing discontent and  unhappiness in a place where the people by themselves were "happy". 

In the 1980s, I came across a  translated version of a short story, written by the Tamil novelist Sivasankari  . Here, the leading character of the story is a young women happily married for 3 to 4 years. One day a woman clad in a simple cotton saree, turns up at her house. She reminds her that they had been classmates in college. The house wife welcomes her home; they were meeting  after many years. The visitor had never married. she was presently occupied  with activities related to  social work and women's rights activism. During the conversation, she asks her married friend whether she was happy?. On being answered in the affirmative she starts probing deeper with questions such as  "When is last time he gave you an impromptu present?"   Does he always remember your birthday? Does he buy you a saree every month, take you out for dinner ? By the time the visitor says good bye and  leave doubts have been sown in the mind of our leading lady "Does my husband really love me now, as much as he used to earlier?"  

It appears that with more and more exposure to the western culture and more money coming into the hands of people post globalization, Indians have started associating happiness more and more  to material gains. If the DGM in our initial example seemed to have come to the conclusion that happiness is elusive,  today's generation seem to be convinced that the golden key to happiness is to collect more and more  things. This reminds me of a newspaper report in the seventies when a foreign  lady visiting India had come with a preconceived notion that India being a poor country most of the people would be sad  and have worried expressions most of the time. She was shocked to see little children in small gullies playing, laughing, and seemingly having a great time. She also found Indian women in the villages smiling a lot even though they had their challenges in day to day life. Ironically, it could be  now when we are enjoying so much more prosperity that  a foreigner finds worried expressions among the population. 

From our discussion thus far, it is clear that happiness cannot be ensured by material prosperity alone. Never in the history of our country  has so many people been plagued with relationship issues leading to higher rates of divorces. According to the second law of the seven spiritual laws explained by Dr Deepak Chopra in his book of the same name, "If you want something, give it". This means if you want love, you need to give love first to the other person. If you want respect you have to give it first. Today , everyone wants to get-  Get first, before they are willing to give. Although living under the same roof, each  member  of the family  is  busy in his/her own world tapping away at their cell phones.   

A sense of gratitude for the many things that we already have instead of sulking about the things we do not have will go a long way in enhancing our happiness levels. Another thing we can do is to avoid the "Keeping up with the Joneses" syndrome. Living your life without comparing with others in terms of  material possessions, occupational progress in the form of promotions etc or thoughts like "I have only five books published, He/she has  fifty published books " will go a long way in keeping unhappiness at bay. when you get into such traps, energy is wasted in  negative emotions like envy and  you are unable to enjoy your own success and engage in things that you truly love. 

I would like to conclude this post by sharing a children's short film "Two" by the veteran director Satyajit Ray. It  draws attention to the fact that simple things can bring us pleasure and happiness in life.  An attitude of  competition and envy can be a big dampener to happiness!  we would all do well to have an introspection as to the percentage of  time  we spent on things that give us happiness and take corrective steps,  allocating sufficient  time  for  "our  favourite things".  

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