I know it's the same old question which has compelled many people like me to think about it. So, the question goes like this: What is Happiness? What makes us happy?
Earlier when I used to get thoughts about happiness, I used to google it and guess what I used to get? A million articles, website links, etc etc saying almost the same lame and cliche thing that Happiness is being satisfied, it is in helping others, it is in doing what you want to, it is this and it is that. But, now, suddenly I don't know exactly why but it all seems very lame.
Going by my personal experience, Happiness is not in being satisfied. First of all its very difficult to find any human being who is fully satisfied. By fully I mean, completely! By completely I mean, truly! Yes, I think by now you must have got what I am trying to emphasize! So, leave out the completely satisfied part. Even if you tell me that you can be satisfied for ever after a point in time to about being 80% satisfied, I would take my words back about happiness not in being satisfied. The reason being, to me it sounds logical that if you are a human being, you can never achieve a state of being close to completely satisfied and be happy about it (yes of course, I am referring to living human beings here)
I am not saying this because I am anti this right from the starting; I am saying this because I have a logic behind this theory of mine. Imagine, you are in the state of being fully satisfied. You have no desires, no apprehensions, no regrets, no grudges, no longings, nothing at all, would you not be bored with your life then? We as human beings long for change, be it slow or fast but if we are made to be living the same monotonous life with nothing really happening, sooner or later, we would surely be bored of our lives.
Yes, you are getting it right if you also thought the next question; Is happiness in being unsatisfied?
And what do you think the answer is? The answer is No! I believe, being completely unsatisfied is too negative a state to bear for a long time for any human being. If you remain unsatisfied for a long long time, you would surely get depressed to the core and eventually become unhappy with yourself, with things around you, with life.
Then, the question which pops next in my mind is, what makes us happy then?
Honestly, after all the thinking I have done about it, Happiness is nothing. It is just a state of mind. Yes, i know you are surprised, but believe me, it is true!
After all, it is just a brain stimulus which gets triggered whenever the control of our life- our brain believes that we are happy. To check on this, I tried doing things that I knew made me happy and constantly kept telling myself that I was not happy doing those things and guess what happened? I was actually not happy!
Yes, I know what you are laughing about now. You must be thinking that it all sounds stupid because then I could constantly tell myself that I am happy and eventually be happy forever. If you were thinking this, think again because this is not that easy a thing to achieve.
Of what I have found out through my experience of living my own life is the fact that we get influenced by negativity more easily than by positivism. Saying it in a simpler way, we attract negative thoughts more easily than positive ones. As a result, even if you constantly think positive, I am sure at some point, no matter what you try, you will have some negative thought or the other in your head!
So, the question arises, How can we be happy then?
If we think from the old perspective of satisfaction, according to me, Happiness is variable state between being completely unsatisfied and completely satisfied. The degree of satisfaction in the recipe of happiness varies from person to person and from time to time in a persons life. But definitely, it is that much satisfaction that you can have sufficient amount of self love and self respect in your head and it is that much amount of being unsatisfied that you don't get bored but drive towards change. Yes, my friends, happiness as of what I have been able to find out till now is the state you reach in some range on your journey from your being unsatisfied to being satisfied. The moment you cross that range, you start becoming unhappy again and your head starts searching for your lost happiness.
How can you make sure that most of the times you remain happy? Is it possible to take control over our brain to the extent that we tend to believe forever that we are in the happy state? These are the questions which are still like the unidentified elements of our galaxy. They are there but you don't know about them.
With these questions still in mind, I would say good bye for now with the hope that someday I would be able to find the answers to the questions that keep popping in my big head all the time!
Earlier when I used to get thoughts about happiness, I used to google it and guess what I used to get? A million articles, website links, etc etc saying almost the same lame and cliche thing that Happiness is being satisfied, it is in helping others, it is in doing what you want to, it is this and it is that. But, now, suddenly I don't know exactly why but it all seems very lame.
Going by my personal experience, Happiness is not in being satisfied. First of all its very difficult to find any human being who is fully satisfied. By fully I mean, completely! By completely I mean, truly! Yes, I think by now you must have got what I am trying to emphasize! So, leave out the completely satisfied part. Even if you tell me that you can be satisfied for ever after a point in time to about being 80% satisfied, I would take my words back about happiness not in being satisfied. The reason being, to me it sounds logical that if you are a human being, you can never achieve a state of being close to completely satisfied and be happy about it (yes of course, I am referring to living human beings here)
I am not saying this because I am anti this right from the starting; I am saying this because I have a logic behind this theory of mine. Imagine, you are in the state of being fully satisfied. You have no desires, no apprehensions, no regrets, no grudges, no longings, nothing at all, would you not be bored with your life then? We as human beings long for change, be it slow or fast but if we are made to be living the same monotonous life with nothing really happening, sooner or later, we would surely be bored of our lives.
Yes, you are getting it right if you also thought the next question; Is happiness in being unsatisfied?
And what do you think the answer is? The answer is No! I believe, being completely unsatisfied is too negative a state to bear for a long time for any human being. If you remain unsatisfied for a long long time, you would surely get depressed to the core and eventually become unhappy with yourself, with things around you, with life.
Then, the question which pops next in my mind is, what makes us happy then?
Honestly, after all the thinking I have done about it, Happiness is nothing. It is just a state of mind. Yes, i know you are surprised, but believe me, it is true!
After all, it is just a brain stimulus which gets triggered whenever the control of our life- our brain believes that we are happy. To check on this, I tried doing things that I knew made me happy and constantly kept telling myself that I was not happy doing those things and guess what happened? I was actually not happy!
Yes, I know what you are laughing about now. You must be thinking that it all sounds stupid because then I could constantly tell myself that I am happy and eventually be happy forever. If you were thinking this, think again because this is not that easy a thing to achieve.
Of what I have found out through my experience of living my own life is the fact that we get influenced by negativity more easily than by positivism. Saying it in a simpler way, we attract negative thoughts more easily than positive ones. As a result, even if you constantly think positive, I am sure at some point, no matter what you try, you will have some negative thought or the other in your head!
So, the question arises, How can we be happy then?
If we think from the old perspective of satisfaction, according to me, Happiness is variable state between being completely unsatisfied and completely satisfied. The degree of satisfaction in the recipe of happiness varies from person to person and from time to time in a persons life. But definitely, it is that much satisfaction that you can have sufficient amount of self love and self respect in your head and it is that much amount of being unsatisfied that you don't get bored but drive towards change. Yes, my friends, happiness as of what I have been able to find out till now is the state you reach in some range on your journey from your being unsatisfied to being satisfied. The moment you cross that range, you start becoming unhappy again and your head starts searching for your lost happiness.
How can you make sure that most of the times you remain happy? Is it possible to take control over our brain to the extent that we tend to believe forever that we are in the happy state? These are the questions which are still like the unidentified elements of our galaxy. They are there but you don't know about them.
With these questions still in mind, I would say good bye for now with the hope that someday I would be able to find the answers to the questions that keep popping in my big head all the time!
