Defining Happiness

Happiness, I am told, is the state of mind. Then how to define it? Indeed, definitions vary from person to person as each hold different ideas about being happy. If we ask someone to define what happiness means to him or her invokes widely varying answers from each. Therefore, in my understanding, there is no common or generic definition for happiness.

I could wildly guess what happiness means to an adult. It is about satisfying ones immediate or long held desires. For example, I feel happy to meet an old friend, or get salary or income hike, or when I go trip with family and friends. However happy we feel for a moment, the happiness is short lived! The reason is simple. If we observe, we mostly attribute our happiness to external factors such as events or objects of desire or pleasure. Thus our 'superficial' happiness takes efforts to reproduce and effect of such happiness diminishes over a period. Interestingly, if we keep doing what makes us happy, over a period we get tired of such happiness and we try to seek other ways to being happy. Notwithstanding, we are constantly in search of happiness externally.

In addition, we may also conclude that we cannot create happiness when we want or desire it. The reason being it is hard to create situations that are mostly beyond our control to make us happy. For instance, we cannot get ourselves a salary hike, or arrange an unexpected meeting with an old friend, to name a few. Therefore, our happiness is controlled by external factors, thus, is unpredictable.

Finding eternal, un-ending happiness needs different mindset than what we have learned since our birth. Old habits die hard and hard to change and not easy, so is creating perpetual happiness. Nevertheless, there are many ways to achieve the bliss.

To feel happy, we must understand the source of our worries, sorrows, or dissatisfactions in our day to day life. We, perhaps, safely consider the negativities in our thinking are some of the enemies of our much sought after, though rarely met, perpetual happiness or bliss. Further, we must find what is really bothering us and find ways to change our thinking. For me, true happiness is not found anywhere externally. Indeed, it is found within each one of us.

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