In the end we all crave for one thing: Happiness.
No matter what journey we are into, we always wish that it leads us to happiness.
We eat lip-smacking food, meditate, take yoga classes, exercise regularly or maybe not at all, binge watch web series, play video games or read books, try to go on multiple dates or hang out with our pals, work diligently at our job or barely get by, all of this because our subconscious thought is that this will lead us to utmost happiness.
This might sound very cliché and matter-of-fact, universal, but then once we truly understand this, life takes 180 degrees turn.
Instead of trying to chase happiness down the road or in a very round-about way, we could just pick habits, routines, and activities that can make us happier right away, now.
For instance, we can reach at an all-new high score in the video game, only to realize later that we lost dozens, if not tons or millions of hours of enjoyment along the way, and all this because we thought that we’d feel the “Happiness” once we ace that level in the game.
We are never content; at work we’re eyeing on that promotion and thus all the overtime, stressed and stretched till wee hours sometimes, drain ourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally for reaching that goal, but we forget along the way we missed so many precious moments with our friends and family. We got disconnected from the social world in the quest of that one promotion.
And we can get in the rut of going on date after date after date, assuming that the other person can hopefully give us that ephemeral sense of happiness we crave for, never actually confronting ourselves and realizing that if we had just stopped for a minute and taken responsibility for our own life and things within, we could have probably found enduring happiness.
If happiness is in achieving these materialistic things, then why doesn’t it last?
Many of us feel that there’s a threshold to happiness, a level, benchmark, of sorts, once we achieve that we will be “happy forever after”
Real love, Riches beyond imagination, Fame, Success, Power, Status, all these will make us a part of a never-ending rat race and we keep pushing till the edge.
Also, we grind, and struggle, and stress for the rest of our lives in the desire to acquire these things and thus, lose the present.
All these efforts in the past have also led us to certain levels of achievements but that has never brought us everlasting happiness, and the path that we chose to walk upon does not at all lead to happiness.
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.
It is the process, the journey that brings happiness, more of blissful and ecstatic happiness, the joy of doing something, experiencing something, the highs and the lows, the good and the bad, the struggle, the courage, all these things are the source of happiness.
It is this Happiness that we should all strive for.
Of course, it will not be enduring, but that’s okay, it’s fine.
As the happiness gained from the process will be much more organic and independent and will last longer than the other kind.
In order to do this, we need to realize that our happiness is not tied to the things we want to achieve, but in the present, in the journey, in the moment.
We have to reach that level in the video game that we want to because we enjoy doing so, work hard in the job and stretch ourselves or worry because the process is fun, gives us joy of doing things, go on date after date because every person you meet is a new adventure waiting to be explored.
We have to start doing things for the fun of doing it and not expecting anything out if it. That’s when we will be bestowed with true happiness that will be enduring.
But to do that we must let go off happiness.
We must let it fly anywhere it wants to, like a Butterfly we’ve chased too far too long.
Instead, we should keep doing what we love and love what we do, and see happiness buzzing around when we least expect it to.
Written By:
Pooja Shah is more than a decade old in the education industry with roles ranging from Professor at a B-School to Foreign language facilitator in China to Content Strategist for an education giant. She is passionate about educating and inspiring the world with generic and specific topics relating to her industry with authentic and accurate information. She heads the Digital Content and Engagement department at C3S Business School.
