In pursuit of Happiness...

One of the most significant aspects of our lives is the pursuit of what we think is happiness. We need happiness to survive like we need oxygen. But the problem is that we have forgotten to recognize what is true happiness. So even though we are seeking... seeking with all our energy and all our life... we are unable to find that transient thing that will make us happy. And even if we do find it for a moment, we are so afraid of it being snatched away that we don't even celebrate that happiness. In the end, we realize that nothing has made us profoundly happy. On a particularly depressing day, while having Chinese takeaway for dinner, I came across this line in a fortune cookie:

This struck a chord with me... so are we ultimately responsible for our own happiness? So many times when I have been angry or upset, I have ended up blaming others and blaming situations. Maybe it was time to retrospect about what I was doing wrong...

• Not enjoying happiness... The biggest mistake we do is not enjoying small moments of joy because we are too worried about what will happen in the future. If only we could accept that every moment... whether happy or sad... will pass, we could have stopped and cherished that time when we had an awesome ice-cream or the time when the dress we loved fitted us perfectly. Instead what we are doing is rushing in our minds... worrying about whether the ice-cream will lead to sore throat or the dress we bought will add to the bills. The best example is to look at a small baby... how rolling over and falling down makes him giggle with uncontrolled happiness. Sure, as adults we have huge responsibilities but would it not bring us happiness to just pause life and enjoy the moment we are in? Life is worrying, there are many things to think about... but when we only worry about the big things and don't enjoy the present, we are losing out on the essence of life.
• Chasing others' happiness... How many times have you felt sad when you looked at what someone else had and what you had paled in comparison? Many a times we go through life pursuing someone else's idea of happiness. We want a car because our neighbor has one, we need a house because our friend has one... how many decisions do we make because we covet what another person has? If only we paused and thought about what would really make us happy... we would find far lesser things to worry about. The truth is we don't know someone else's story or what they are going through... we only want the god things that they choose to portray to us. If we only knew about their hardships, we would not choose to seek what they have. The idea behind the line "Keeping  up with the Joneses" is exactly that... measuring your own needs and happiness by someone else's scales. Stop doing that and half your troubles would be over.
• Outsourcing happiness... Coming back to my fortune cookie and the profound lesson it was trying to convey that night... Create your own happiness! If you decide that you are going to be a happy person, you'll ultimately come up with ways to achieve that. If you decide that you're going to be unhappy, even winning a billion dollar lottery will not help (you might be a sad, rich person). This is because people are inherently conditioned to be a certain way and even though adversities or good fortunes may come their way, they will ultimately be what they want to be. So the question to ask yourself is... Do you want to be happy? If your answer is yes, then believe me, you'll go to any length to find that happiness. Otherwise, you'll always find ways to blame your environment for your misery. 

If you have made it to the end without getting tired of the philosophy... Then remember today is a great day to start being happy!