There are precisely two reasons for which everyone, living in the world, is working for:
- To increase one’s happiness and
- For sustaining it.
Staying happy, for everyone, is imperative. But what makes one happy? And having once attained that ‘happiness’ how is he to sustain it? Since time immemorial our civilizations have been in pursuit of happiness. All the religions and social systems discovered or invented were intended to make us happy. But, regrettably, even after ‘conquering’ the moon and deploying satellites on other planetary bodies in our solar system, we, the mankind, are yet to attain that incessant happiness in our daily lives.
Because everyone likes to be happy they are in pursuit of being ‘rich, beautiful, knowledgeable and strong’. These are, however, some of the several attributes everybody is clambering to accomplish – at least to some degree. But riches and beauty, among them, appears to be the often coveted, while the rest are little cared for.
To go affluent everyone have their own plan. This contriving often leads to dispute between those who intend to achieve a common objective(s). It further paves way for envy and jealousy. Rivalry between those athletes, movie stars, authors, politicians, musical groups or even those within businesses and corporations testify this fact. It is also the very same jealousy and envy which leads to discrimination, persecution and enmity in the society, which in turn makes us to loose track of the ‘perpetual happiness’ and thereafter land ourselves in a state of misery, with mind filled with utter frustration.
These frustrated minds knowing not what to do end up trying ‘to make the very best of it.’ These men thus end up working more and enjoying less, while the primary goal of life, i.e. of being happy, slips off softly. This is the very reason for discontent of every single soul living on this very planet.
I have a friend who’s a multi-millionaire and yet he continues to work recklessly along with his wife in their respective offices. They are so busy that finding time for their only child is virtually impossible. I asked them once the reason for which they were working so hard. I found no reason valid enough to force them to work so hard. ‘It’s not like that pal we are working arduously to ensure that our daughter get what we have failed to get – Happiness!’ he said, furthering, ‘I want her to have every thing she desires and aspires for. I want her to be happy.’
Did he say ‘Happy’? His girl is hardly five years old and passes most of her time with a nanny, who, somehow, isn’t happy with her own job. The kid, the way I see it, is completely missing love and affection. It’s very much evident that given the ‘tight’ schedule of her mommy and daddy she hardly gets to have a glimpse of theirs, forget spending some quality time. Of what use is their wealth when it can’t even buy a bit of love and time of their own to that child?
Continuing with I am compelled to recall a quite sickening feature gripping the mind of many – world over. People today are unhappy not because of lack of resources with them. They are unhappy because others are happy! So many are unhappy today not because they aren’t earning well but because their peers are earning more than them! They aren’t sad because they don’t have a home, but for the reason that their neighbour has got a new flat in a very posh area! Hilarious? Sorry, it’s nauseating to me. The logic of comparison is good, but not in such a way.
I am trained in management. The only saddening characteristic of this profession is that it compels people to be ‘unhappy’. ‘If you are happy then you are bound to perish’ is an undeclared axiom here. This too is no less noisome.
I am of the conviction that ‘Happiness is to be found nowhere else but in you. No one can ever make you happy. If at all someone could… it’s you – yourself.’
As a patriot when I think of felicity I am recalled of those wise words by a great son of our land, JRD Tata, who had once declared, and very righteously, that ‘I don’t want India to be a powerful country… but I want it to be a happy country.’ How true? If in power laid happiness of a nation, then why isn’t America happy?
If we don’t want to be happy there is nothing to make us felicitous and if we want to be happy, we can be so with most modest of our resources.
Author is co-founder and Editor-in-chief of upcoming apolitical family magazine FOLKS and also a Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London (UK)
