Happiness - A result or An Experience? Ask yourself

Happiness is one thing everyone craves for either explicitly or implicitly.

In fact one would give anything in return for always having a happy emotion.

I strongly feel that everyone approaches happiness as a goal rather than as an experience. Which is why probably people miss the whole thing.

The whole point is that happiness does not exist outside of us and it is totally within ourselves. It is there in that deep reserve of emotions that we possess and is concealed in layers and layers of other emotions and tends to be at the bottom most layer waiting for an outward stimuli to pull it out of its depths onto our face or mind.

Which is why happiness is experienced only together with ecstasy since a mega event is required to prise it out from the depths of consciousness.

This happiness tends to last temporarily for its nature is more physical than emotional.

True happiness is achieved only when the emotion of Happiness pervades all our other emotions.

Wait a minute I am not advocating that one should try to be happy overcoming or suppressing all other emotions. It is not only impossible but also pretty trite to show a wrong emotion at the wrong place.

What I mean is that the emotion of Happiness should act more like a traffic cop in regulating the other emotions in our mind and ensure that each of these emotions exist with a finite shelf life or expiry timestamp.

This kind of happiness is more to do with being contended with what results one gets for any effort and all that should matter at the end of it is a honesty of purpose and intention that backs the effort.

I have seen, and still see, so many close people suffer in life owing to comparison of their lot with that of others as to how theirs is bad or those of others is better.

I was not an exception when it comes to being trapped with these emotions. But a serious introspection of these emotions while being trapped opened my eyes to the fact that the mind is in a trap.

This trap simply stops you from thinking positively and makes you to try and showcase yourself as a success in areas that your heart actually does not want you to be successful at.

You stop chasing your heart and end up chasing your newly established goals thinking that will bring you out of this trap. It unfortunately leads you only to a maze of more stronger emotions that take you farther away from the real person that you are.

I stopped comparing myself with anyone after a few incidents made me realize the total emptiness of the approach of comparison.

Just think for a minute, the same mind that craves for a good result to happen to oneself when you see someone known to you experiencing the same, silently prays to God wanting him not to make you a victim of a mishap that happens to another person.

Why is it that we suffer in comparison only by wanting all the good things that happen to others to happen to us also.

It is only because (a) We are hardwired to chase happiness at the subconscious level and (b) We also have an externalized concept of happiness etched on our mind that it is a sum total of all the positive results that happen to us in life.

And the reason why happiness is therefore elusive to us is that most of the time results are totally an outcome of factors beyond our immediate control, which is why we all still pray to God.

So what then is the secret of all time happiness...Simple, look no further, look inside you and dig really deep.

Detach yourself from results and attach yourself to your inner reserves and strengths that give you the fortitude and maturity to face any situation be it positive or negative.

The more you are aligned to enjoying the efforts you put in rather than saving the enjoyment for later once a positive result is achieved for your effort, the more you will get close to experiencing happiness in a majority portion of your lifetime.

Of course results do matter and they can cause a negative emotion to flow out.

But the detachment from results will ensure that happiness will persist in your mind and ensure that the negative emotions are packed off after a normal expiry period. And gradually but surely you will find that life moves on and most importantly in a direction aligned to goals that are more closer to your heart.

I am an Accountant by core competence (although not by profession) and my version of Karma is the theory that everyone's life is a balance sheet. 

In other words we all have an equal amount of positive and negative things that will occur to offset one another.

I do not mean that all of us will get the same amount of positive and negative things. 

Instead everybody will get as much positive results as they got negative results at an individual level.

This thought process helps me look forward to positive things when I am on a trough of life and stay grounded when I am on a high, both of which are important to break the mind to face the cycle.

I was able to achieve a lot of stability in my emotions, thanks to this approach and today I can look back and feel proud to realize that I have faced quite a lot of emotional challenges with fortitude and the resulting release of tension ensured that my life goes on in a direction aligned to my heart than my ego.

Most importantly this changed the way I prayed. I greatly reduced asking for favorable outcomes and instead prayed for the divine presence within me to ensure that I continue to have the maturity to implement this thought process irrespective of outcomes.

Good luck in implementing this thought framework as suitable to events in your life.

Cheers,

Mahesh