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Dec-19-2008
Author's Home Page
Views expressed here are author"s own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is
at the bottom.
(Author is Editor-In-Chief of upcoming apolitical and illustrated family magazine FOLKS and Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London (UK))
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There are precisely two reasons for which everyone, living in the world, is working for:
1. To increase one"s happiness and
2. To sustain it
Staying happy, for everyone, is imperative. But what makes one happy? And having once attained that "happiness" how is one to sustain it? Since time immemorial, our civilizations have been in pursuit of happiness. All the religions and social systems discovered or invented were intended to make us happy. But, regrettably, even after "conquering" the moon and deploying satellites on other planetary bodies in our solar system, we are yet to attain that incessant happiness in our daily lives.
Since everyone likes to be happy, they are in pursuit of being "rich, beautiful, knowledgeable, and strong". These are, however, some of the several attributes everybody is trying to accomplish-at least to a certain degree. Of these, riches and beauty appear to be the most coveted, while the rest are often ignored.
Everyone has their own plan for achieving affluence. This contriving often leads to disputes between those who have a common objective(s). It further paves the way for envy and jealousy. Rivalry between athletes, movie stars, authors, politicians, musical groups, or even businesses and corporations, testify to this fact. It is also this jealousy and envy which leads to discrimination, persecution, and enmity, in society, which in turn leads us to lose track of "perpetual happiness" and instead lands us in a state of misery, accompanied by an utterly frustrated mind.
These frustrated minds then end up trying "to make the very best of it". These people thus, end up working more and enjoying less, while the primary goal of life, i.e. of being happy, slips away softly. This is the reason behind the discontent of every single soul living on this planet.
I have a friend who"s a multi-millionaire, and yet, he continues to work recklessly along with his wife, in their respective offices. They are so busy that finding time for their only child is virtually impossible. I once asked them the reason for their working so hard for I could not find any justification for their working so hard. "It"s not like that pal; we are working arduously to ensure that our daughter gets what we have failed to get-happiness!" he said, further adding, "I want her to have everything she desires and aspires for. I want her to be happy."
Did he say "happy"? His girl is hardly five years old and passes most of her time with a nanny, who, somehow, isn"t happy with her own job. The kid, the way I see it, is completely missing love and affection. It"s very much evident that given the "tight" schedule of her mommy and daddy she hardly gets to have a glimpse of them, forget spending some quality time in their company. Of what use is their wealth when it can"t even buy a bit of their own love and time for that child?
On this note, I recall quite a sickening feature gripping the mind of many, the world over. People today are unhappy not because of they lack resources; they are unhappy because others are happy! So many are unhappy today not because they aren"t earning well, but because their peers are earning more than them! They aren"t sad because they don"t have a home, but for the reason that their neighbour has a new flat in a very posh locality! Hilarious? Sorry, it"s nauseating to me. The logic of comparison is good, but not in such a way.
I am trained in management. The only saddening characteristic of this profession is that it compels people to be "unhappy". "If you are happy then you are bound to perish", is the undeclared axiom here. I am of the conviction that "happiness is found nowhere else but within you. No one can ever make you happy. If at all someone could. it"s you- yourself."
As a patriot, when I think of felicity, I recall those wise words by a great son of our land, J R D Tata, who had once declared, and very righteously, that "I don"t want India to be a powerful country. but I want her to be a happy country." How true? If in power lay the happiness of a nation, then why isn"t America happy?
If we don"t want to be happy, there is nothing to make us felicitous and if we want to be happy, we can be so with the most modest of resources.
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References & Notes:
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