Happiness

Are we happy as a nation? The answer should be positive considering that we have the oldest and richest history of philosophic exploration of ‘happiness’. After all, this is the land where Buddha had received his enlightenment and had discovered the eightfold path to overcome the miseries of human life! Further, we have perhaps the largest contingent of Gurus today, who are guiding hundreds of thousands to be happy. Yet India’s ranking in the formal World Happiness Report of the current year is a depressing 122 in a list of 155 countries. All our SAARC neighbours stand ahead of us except the war ravaged Afghanistan. Countries such as Nigeria, Somalia and Vietnam are happier countries than India. We have scored higher over the likes of Sudan, Yemen and Ghana.

When an international ranking is adverse, it is an easy defence to doubt the methodology and definitions underlying the ranking. In the instant case, one would tend to say, ‘well, does anybody really understand what happiness is? Is there an agreed definition of happiness? And how can one measure or compare the levels of happiness of different countries to construct a ranking?’ These questions are valid as long as we do not consider some practical aspects of being happy.

I remember a poem by John Hay taught to us in school – ‘The Enchanted Shirt’. The beautiful story told in the poem goes as follows:

Once a king felt that he was sick. The court physician was called in to diagnose the problem. As he could not find any sign of physical sickness in the king, he was sent to the gallows. More doctors were sent for, but no one could discover the king’s ailment. They were all beheaded as punishment. Finally there came a doctor, who declared that the king was indeed sick. The king was very pleased with the doctor and rewarded him well. However, the doctor handed over a strange prescription – ‘the king will be well, if he sleeps one night in the shirt of a Happy Man’. Spies were sent out in search of a happy man, but they failed to find one. Everyone living in the kingdom had some reason or the other not to feel happy. At last, the spies spotted a beggar, who was demonstrably happy, but he had no shirt to wear. The unsuccessful search for a happy man’s shirt made the king realize the sad state of affairs in the kingdom; he was ‘ashamed of his useless life, and his maladies hatched in gloom’.

Happiness is a state of mind – how else was the beggar happier than the wealthy! I don’t think the message on happiness embedded in the poem had then penetrated the mind of a young school boy. As I think about it today, I feel happiness cannot entirely be a state of mind – perhaps the ‘state of mind’ part of happiness is a necessary but not sufficient condition to be happy. A hungry and deprived person can seldom be happy. If I see a beggar jumping in happiness, I would first check if he is inebriated! Happiness should not be confused with temporary spurts of euphoria stimulated by specific incidents; it is more enduring and worthwhile.

Think about a child. The basic condition to see him happy is to ensure that he is not hungry. The other conditions that follow are that he is healthy, receives adequate attention from others around him, has a sense of safety, and has some interesting engagement. The child’s happiness depends on all these factors (by no means it is an exhaustive list) though the degree of influence exerted by each factor may vary. As the child grows into adulthood, the sources of happiness continue to be the same in essence; only the narrative around each essential factor changes. These factors take the form of healthy life expectancy, workplace happiness, extent of social support, trust and freedom in life, to name a few. All these factors may not be measurable cardinally, but an ordinal measurement should be possible.

Talking about happiness in day-to-day life, no two individuals derive the same level of happiness even under similar circumstances. Every individual has his own unique way of interpreting the known sources of happiness. In any case, happiness at workplace is a big contributor to a person’s overall happiness as he spends a lot of time on a given day at his workplace. Everyone may not have the same capacity to absorb the depressing effects of dealing with a rude and yelling boss at office the whole day and yet bear a smile in the evening at a family get-together. The reverse spill over is equally responsible when your spirits are down at the workplace due to a bad conjugal life. Managing the spillovers is sometimes a difficult balancing act. Further, an employee needs recognition, independence, self-esteem, fair competition and a host of other factors to feel happy. Even if you are working for a company well ranked in the ‘great place to work’ survey, you cannot be sure of individual happiness at your workplace.

No one can have a life free of worries. A happy person is one who knows that he has friends and relatives to support him in any kind of trouble. Mutual trust and support are foundations for happiness. At the same time, there are people who derive happiness by helping others. These people act as catalysts in enhancing overall happiness in the society. Many people try to seek happiness through prayers – they look for a divine source to seek support from. A profound faith in the Almighty reduces worries and enhances happiness. Indeed, any means to reduce your worries should be a welcome step.

A colleague of mine, who considers himself as nothing less than a God-man often says, ‘worries in life take your happiness to ransom, but it is easy to blow them away. What you need is to learn to blow the worries away.’ He then gives the example of his Guru and professes that the followers of his Guru are blessed to know the only path to happiness in this modern world. In the process, he appears to be soliciting membership for his organisation and inevitably assumes to himself a sense of divine respectability. He perhaps feels happy while doing so. But we know how upset he was when he lost a simple promotion opportunity. There are many who pretend happiness – perhaps they are the unhappiest in the world!

There is no hard-coded path to happiness. Yet one thing that is most likely to bring happiness to anyone, whether wealthy, poor or powerful, is a sense of fulfilment.

First and foremost, one must be able to discover one’s own likes and dislikes, strengths and deficiencies. Once this realistic assessment gets printed in the mind, one’s goals shape up with clarity. A sense of fulfilment comes when one achieves those goals by pursuing ways that conform to one’s own convictions. The goals may be just day-to-day tasks or bigger lifetime goals. As long as you have the freedom to be yourself and not artificially live other people’s contrary expectations, you are close to lead a life of fulfilment. It does not matter whether you achieve every goal as long as you have not lost the freedom to be yourself. You compete with none for happiness.

A classmate of mine studied Sanskrit literature in the university merely because his father forced him to do so. He is a professor of repute today, but I know, his real interest was Mathematics when he was in school. Is he happy now? Could his happiness be greater if he had become a professor of Mathematics instead of Sanskrit? Many of us get into professional lives where our personal values do not necessarily converge with that of our employer. When your friend is able to make a killing in a rising stock market, you perhaps lament your inability to match him. But why this unfair comparison if your goal never comprised short-term investments in stocks? Sometimes you start following a Guru because others are seen doing it. Happiness remains elusive.

Henry David Thoreau, the American philosopher of the 19th century says, “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”

In my view, ‘just be yourself – you will be happy’.

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Author: Manoranjan Mishra

Interested in creative expressions. View all posts by Manoranjan Mishra