FINDING HAPPINESS

“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.”

The above quotation by the well-respected and very successful author and inspirational speaker, H. Jackson Brown, Jr. speaks to the fundamentally complex nature of the human expression of happiness, and our continued inability to fully understand it.

The main difficulty in the understanding is that happiness, like all of our basic emotional expressions, cannot be defined or quantified, and at best, can only be recognized by its effects on the individual. And even these effects may vary quite substantially from person to person depending on the underlying personality, previous experiences and prevailing circumstances. In addition, to be effective, the expression of happiness must also include other components such as fulfillment, hope, and satisfaction in good amounts. But when it is successful, it invariably gives rise to feelings of contentment and joy in the individual and a desire to continue on the same path.

The great American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne once noted very eloquently, the following observation:

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, it may alight upon you."

It is this sense of confidence in oneself and in one’s choices that dictate the predictability of happiness, as is the expectation that the rewards will always come in the form of fulfilled dreams, joy and desires. It is having the confidence to believe that it will always be there if one persists in the endeavor. It is indeed the singular force that encourages you to stay on your road and not waver under difficult circumstances. This will only happen however, if we are patient enough to allow happiness to take hold.

Unfortunately, for a large number of people, especially those caught in this consumer-oriented society with its raging currents of modern civilization and its determined undercurrents of selfishness and competition, happiness equates to the next acquisition, the next conquest or the next compliment. But these material objects serve only to enhance a false sense satisfaction, like a coat of cheap paint that quickly fades. They do not, nor can they ever be compared with the deep sense of joy and satisfaction emanating from the depth of your soul for sharing yourself with others.

 Bill Gates recently resoundingly reaffirmed this feeling in an address directed to all the college graduates of 2017 when he described his own measure of happiness in the following terms:

“I measure my happiness by whether people close to me are happy and love me, and by the difference I make in other people’s lives.” 

-There was no mention of his enviably immense reputation, the highly successful companies he built, the mansions he owned, or the billions of dollars he is worth; only of the difference he made on other people’s lives. This indeed is a true hallmark of happiness and one that will endear him for as long as he is alive and well beyond this.

Unfortunately however, in our determined haste to find some kind of happiness, many of us have sacrificed its true meaning on the altar of personal convenience. No longer do we seem to recognize that, while the emotion of happiness is itself fleeting, its effect on us is as lasting as the depth of meaning we attach to it. How can one ever compare the happiness shown on the radiant, smiling face of St. Teresa of Kolkata as she ministered to the most destitute and rejected inhabitants of India’s pavements, with the grinning, gloating image of Donald J. Trump after his success at the recent presidential elections? Or for that matter, is there any comparison between the joy and pride experienced by a teacher receiving recognition from her school board, and that of the current popular woman on television receiving   loud applause for exposing her body and her morals? The answers to both these are loud and clear!

In the end, living the truly happy life and pursuing happiness is not, as so many people try to insist, a matter of luck, circumstances or shrewd opportunity. It is more correctly related to one’s attitude, intention and willingness to make the effort and take the appropriate steps in their lives to achieve happiness. As Earnest Hemingway, the controversial American author, journalist and Nobel Laureate, so wisely concluded: 

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only in the details of how he lived that distinguishes one man from another.”

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