“The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.” (Lulu)
Happiness often seems both elusive and illusory. In today’s fast-paced world, we remember to do everything except for staying happy. Our lives have increasingly become too tough to handle, revolving around technology, stress, monetary gains, and other social evils. Everyone is involved way too much in focusing on things that do not need prioritized attention.
Taking a Darwinian model of human behaviour, there is no reproductive advantage in long-term happiness because a happy person just sits there and does nothing.
Our brain will simply up the ante when we achieve something that makes us happy. This fits well with observations about human nature in general. The rich gripe almost as much as the poor about something or the other.
Happiness in today’s world is measured by success in careers, indulgence in shopping and drinks and may even be validated by attention on social media. Is this our definition of happiness? Do we wish to be happy in life only if we are acknowledged or praised or given a raise? As we grow up, unfortunately, we end up losing our innocence and serenity in the midst of pressures of adulthood.
Most often we end up forgetting to look after our own selves while we are busy managing a household or maintaining social relations.
Good health, satisfaction in life, pursuing hobbies and enjoying idly take a back seat. Most of us thus waste innumerable hours, days, months and even years of our lives without being happy.
“Happiness is not a destination,” they say. “It’s a journey.” It’s a mindset, a perspective, a choice. And it has nothing to do with finally reaching the Holy Grail of anticipated, sought-after bliss. If happiness runs in your veins, this may be preaching to the choir. But for some, the elixir seems a little more elusive. And hearing that happiness is not a destination isn’t enough to change that.
They need to understand why it isn’t an endpoint. This is why we must consider happiness to be a way of life or a journey, and not the final destination. There will never come that ‘one fine day’ where you will be so satisfied with your life that you will not hope for anything else.
No particular job, college, or vacation will send you into an unending state of pure bliss. No amount of money or friends or the perfect life partner will ever provide you eternal happiness. Life is never a straight line. There are ups and downs, highs and lows – which means that your happy moments will not stay, but so will not your disappointing phases.
Both these kinds of phases will come and go; making it imperative to live the present moment whole-heartedly. Your destination may arrive, but your journey will never come back. Your struggle, your wait, your age – everything needs to be enjoyed and felt happy about.
In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness and living a good life squarely at the centre of psychological research and theory.
It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate potential and creating meaning in one’s life, respectively.
Ever since, thousands of studies and hundreds of books have been published with the aim of helping people lead more satisfying lives. There are three major findings on which these studies converge.
A part of the problem is that happiness isn’t just one thing. In her book The Happiness Myth, Jennifer Hecht, a philosopher, proposes that we experience different types of happiness, but these do not always go together. In fact, some types of happiness may even conflict with one another. In other words, having too much of one type of happiness may undermine our ability to have enough of the others – so it’s impossible for us to simultaneously have all types of happiness in great quantities. As happiness in one area of life increases, it’ll often decline in another.
The second finding is that we delude ourselves about our past and our future. This dilemma is further confounded by the way our brains process the experience of happiness. Surely, our past and future aren’t always better than the present. Yet we continue to think that this is the case.
There’s evidence that our brains do indeed operate this way; many of us possess something called the “optimism bias”, which is the tendency to think that our future will be better than our present. Thus, our memories of the past are often distorted, viewed through rose-coloured glasses.
The third finding is that these delusions about the past and the future could be an adaptive part of the human psyche, with innocent self-deceptions actually enabling us to keep striving. If our past is great and our future can be even better, then we can work our way out of the unpleasant – or at least, mundane – present.
All of this tells us something about the fleeting nature of happiness. Emotion researchers have long known about something called the hedonic treadmill. We work very hard to reach a goal, anticipating the happiness it will bring.
Unfortunately, after a brief fix we quickly slide back to our baseline, ordinary way-of-being and start chasing the next thing we believe will almost certainly – and finally – make us happy. So, what is the way out ? Here is a list of tentative seven hierarchal steps that are time tested by a host of people over the years which are expected to help you overcome misery and lead a reasonably happy life.
Step 1. Cultivating self-love is a sine-qua-non to be happy. In order to achieve this, you have to give your life value. Take care of your health and physical well-being. It’s also necessary to understand that we are unique beings in this world. That means that each one of our virtues and defects are the result of a unique history in the universe. We aren’t any more or less than anyone else, simply the effect of millions of unrepeatable causes.
Step 2. Act positively by putting things into practice. One of the things that can make people the most unhappy is thinking about being the best, or of having a better life, but simply leaving it as a thought. This only leads to frustration and guilt. If you think you can or should do something, simply do it. You don’t have to hesitate or ponder so much over it. It is also important that your actions be consistent with your words. And, of course, with your thoughts. If you think a certain way, but act another, you will only create confusion. Instead, when there is harmony in your inner world, everything flows much more easily.
Step 3. Root out envy and jealousy. People who spend their lives thinking about other people’s accomplishments, before considering their own, are creating a path towards bitterness. You never know what another person has gone through to achieve or acquire what they have. Thus, you’re not fit to judge whether they deserve it or not. Instead of thinking about whether others will make it or not, take care of your own success. If you allow envy to bloom within your heart, you’ll suffer. And your suffering will be useless and destructive. If you manage to feel happy for the success and accomplishments of others, your happiness will be double. You’ll have more strength within your heart to reach your goals.
Step 4. Fight resentment and learn to let go. Sometimes we receive insults, and they are so strong that the pain remains forever stuck within our heart. With the passage of time, the pain turns into frustration. And this later on turns into rage. You end up playing host to a very negative feeling, and this ends up paralyzing you. Resentment is another of those useless passions, which greatly harms the person who harbours it. Life has its own logic. That’s why, when confronted with an insult you should remember that the person who caused it will get justice on their own. Sooner or later, everybody reaps what they sow. That’s why, everyone should strive to forgive, forget and let go.
Step 5. Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Everything that you take illicitly from others brings about unpleasant consequences. Over time, he who committed the crime will be stripped of something of much greater value. Not respecting other people’s possessions also makes it so that whatever you acquire will eventually simply vanish. This doesn’t apply only to material goods. It also has to do with the appropriation of ideas, affection or benefits that don’t correspond to you.
Step 6. Eradicate abuse in your life. No living being should ever be abused. This includes people and, possibly, plants and animals too. He who manages to interact lovingly with life will manage to be happy.All living beings are a source of joy and well-being, that’s why they should be valued.
This, obviously, implies a radical refusal to being mistreated. It’s good for you to be firm, to reject any situation or person that mistreats or abuses you. No form of abuse is “for your own good” or for the good of anyone else.
Step 7. Be thankful every day of your life. It’s very simple, and it has a very powerful effect on your emotions. Every day you have reasons to be grateful, have no doubt about it. If you acquire the habit of making the words “thank you” the first you use every day, you’ll see how your life simply brightens up and fills with colour. This simple ritual changes lives. When it becomes a habit, it will place you in the position of goodness and good disposition towards everything. It makes you feel happier, and it turns you into a more generous person. Furthermore, it allows you to have a clearer sense of all of the value that your life has.
These seven steps are like a ladder that leads to happiness. They constitute an evolutionary process that leads to inner peace. That peace is the only indispensable condition for you to achieve happiness. And being happy means reaching a state in which individuals accept themselves, with nobility and intelligence, all the vicissitudes of life.
Bhushan Lal Razdan, formerly of the Indian Revenue Service, retired as Director General of Income Tax (Investigation), Chandigarh.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.