Posts Tagged ‘happiness’
That Happiness Shirt
Everyone strives for better shape. For most of us it is an eternal fight to fitness. My body weight fluctuates a lot depending on my eating habits and exercise regime. There are times when I am fit; there are times when I am unfit.
But there is always that one shirt which was bought at the height of fitness. When I am able to wear, it makes me happy. Couple of months of unhealthy lifestyle, junk food, late nights, break from workout and I can’t fir into my perfect shirt.
When I gain around 5-6kgs, and start huffing and puffing, I get back to diet and workout. Junk food gets replaced with fruits and home made food. Regular workout, cycling, Baba Ramdev come back into picture.
I try that perfect shirt daily. It starts from not being able to button up. Moves to buttoning up but with bulging Moobs. A month or so later comes the moment when I am able to wear it to office. The joy of the Perfect Shirt.
I am sure this trait is shared by a lot of people. Whoever you are, where ever you are, I am sure you have that perfect Shirt, waiting to make you happy.
Why it’s good to be selfish
Since childhood we are taught not to be selfish. Selfishness is a moral sin. We should think about others before ourselves. This training begins from such an early age that it gets imbibed into us naturally; to some more the than others.
What we are not taught is that there are cases where it’s okay to act selfish. For instance our happiness supersedes all. If we are happy by being selfish, then so be it. If putting others before us is making us unhappy then it’s of no use.
But it is easier said than done. This gives rise to a moral dilemma. What if we are unhappy either ways? If by being selfish, you are sad for others. And by not being selfish you are not happy for yourself. What to do then? Well my friend, it’s a classic case of being screwed.
Such people have some manufacturing defect and are bound to suffer all through their life. They are the ones who are not able to take finite decisions due to their inner dilemma. They dilly dally to the extent of making their own life and life of people around them miserable.
They feel like everyone around them is making them suffer. What they forget is people around them are just being selfish for their own happiness; something which the miserable beings are not able to do.
Such people are bound for eternal disgruntled life.
How Santa found Happiness!
A little girl prayed to Santa, “Santa I don’t ask for much, please just make my loved ones happy”. Saying this, she slept.
After listening to her request, Santa went across the world looking for happiness. He went to Malls and shopping complexes; Mountain tops to depths of oceans; from heaven to hell. He couldn’t find happiness anywhere. Exhausted Santa sat down panting.
He scratched his head. Nothing! He then went to his best pal, Jesus. Buddy, a silly little girl has troubled me. Now where am I supposed to find happiness? Jesus smiled. Took out a gift, all wrapped up, out of his pocket. Inside it lies happiness, said he. Relieved Santa took it and delivered it to everyone she wished.
I just opened my gift. There was a mirror. I saw my face in it. Happiness is inside me. Happiness is inside everyone one of us! And we spend our whole life searching for it.
Happy happiness!
Image Courtesy: http://www.wikipaintings.org/
Happiness is Strange
To be honest I have had my fair share of happiness in life. Still it remains one such emotion which I have not been able to comprehend; at least the reaction to it has been an enigma to me.
Emotions and facial expressions follow each other. Sadness make the face look gloomy; fighting hard to not let the tears out, we can see lines on the face; during anger, the tension on the forehead can be detected.
But when it comes to happiness, people deal with it in their own strange ways.
Excitement: One jumps up and down. Runs around. May be to attract attention and let others know about the happiness. Or to get exhausted with all the physical exercise so as to die the excitement down.
Mona Lisa: Simple smile. Blood rushes to the cheeks making them pink. The face is beaming.
Laugh-out-Loud: This facebook lingo is something which a lot of people actually practice. Sudden bout of happiness. A joke perhaps. Little force on a small surface creates extreme pressure. Similarly a sudden happiness may create hysterical laughter.
High Fives: Joy of victory. High fives, fists thrown up and down. This is a happiness of accomplishment. Win a war, win a game. Your face shows determination. Your face might not have a smile, but you are happy within.
Peace: The face shows relief. You are happy to achieve something after a lasting struggle. Happy that that the struggle is over. After an exhaustive soccer match ending in a tie. Soldier who has been on warfront from a long time, on hearing of the truce.
Tears: Here is where it gets murky. People cry when happy. How often we seen people crying on receiving an award? This pertains to getting our due after a huge effort. Tears of happiness. Strange. Isn’t it?
The day I cried
What is the most passionate human emotion? Love, happiness, anger, sadness would be some guess perhaps. Well, not exactly. It would be tears. The singlemost, strong emotion on earth. You feel happy, Tears of joy. You feel sad, Tears of sorrow. You feel angry, unable to control yourself, Tears of madness. You fall in love, Tears of passion. You feel hurt, Tears of pain. You are caught red handed, Tears asking for forgiveness. When someone departs, Tears of loss. When your child excels, Tears of pride. The list is endless. Tears span all emotions.
Let me admit at the onset, I do cry sometimes. Not in public though. After all I have to keep my male ego going. I have never even imagined myself doing so. Would be a highly embarrassing moment. Or so I thought!
Last time I remember myself crying was when my grandfather died. I was in my hostel room when my sister called me. The tears just flowed, they were spontaneous. But it all got over with no one around.
This time it was an auspicious and public occasion. My sisters wedding. I was busy with arrangements and couldn’t foresee what was to come. It was the Ladies Sangeet function. Few words about this Ladies Sangeet. It is organized as a pre-wed ritual on a grand scale in North. Stage is set up. Professional dance and music troop is called. Everyone from the family is supposed to dance. However good or bad it might be.
I am not a type to dance or sing. So I decided to duck via what I could do. Say a poem. Little did I know that it would prove to be my nemesis. There wasn’t enough time so I jotted down a few lines and added tit-bits from my older writings. Everything seemed fine. I was through with most of the lines. I had just described an incidence from our childhood and there were awes all around.
As I reached the end where I chastised her for deserting us, something happened. I can’t describe it. I tried to resist myself, cautious of being on stage and eyes staring at me. Couldn’t help it. The tears followed. What a Man was I!
I managed to finish the poem just in time to see my crying sister rushing towards me. And the worst part, I was forced to dance too. Here is what I wrote.
कुछ सुनो तो कुछ में कहूं कहानी,
मैं बीच रस्ते चेंटा था,
कुछ हठ था भरा कुछ रूठा था,
मुझे था वही खिलौना लेना,
जिस में थे दो तोते और एक मैना|
पैसे थे चार जरूरतें थी दस,
मैं रो रो कर चिंघडाया था,
माँ ने भी थप्पड़ लगाया था,
तभी किसी ने प्यार से थपकाया था,
माँ मुझे कुछ नहीं है लेना,
भैया का बस चुप कर दो रोना|
वैसे भी ऐसा क्या मांगे वो,
बस दो तोते और एक मैना,
बस दो तोते और एक मैना|
…
…
आज तू बिदा हो है चली, बाबुल का घर छोड़ के,
बनाने चली तू नए रिश्ते, पुरानों से मुहँ मोड़ के,
कुछ और देर तक रहती तो, मिल बैठ के बातें करते हम,
कुछ बात पुरानी कहता मैं, कुछ गम मिल-जुलकर करते कम,
कुछ और देर तक रहती तो (सिसक-सिसक), मिल बैठ के बातें करते हम,
कुछ बात पुरानी कहता मैं, कुछ गम मिल-जुलकर (सिसक-सिसक)…”
Happiness Divided
Last weekend, a discussion initiated out of boredom, led to an interesting thought. Let me put forward a number of assumptions before getting into the heart and soul of it.
Assumption 1: There exists some heavenly power, call it God if you want to.
Assumption 2: The heavenly powers created the universe and in that sense our earth and subsequently human beings. And after forming us it went into the self imposed sleep mode.
Assumption 3: Unlike Oil, Water, Thorium and Diamonds; Happiness was divided equally all over the earth. i.e. Happiness per square meter = Total happiness/Total surface area of earth.
Given the assumptions, a square meter of land should have as much amount of happiness as a square meter of ocean surface. Now the total surface area of earth is about 500 million square km, with around 150 of it land and rest 350 being water.
World population today is around 6.5 billion. This ideally gives 0.02 square km area per person. Let the happiness on earth be 1 HN per square km (equally divided). HN being happiness quotient (say). It gives 0.02 HN per person. If population density is taken into consideration we are left with a drastic difference in happiness among different continents. Given the hypothesis. Just to give you some idea:
- Asia: 0.012 HN
- Africa: 0.031 HN
- Europe: 0.014 HN
- Oceania: 0.270 HN
So Down under people have more Happiness and Asia comes the last. Is it really so? Well I don’t know if happiness can be measured someday, can be quantified or not. There have been a lot of tries though. One such try that I was reading, was http://www.financialjesus.com/2008/05/27/top-10-happiest-countries/ . They consider certain parameters and list top ten happiest countries. Here are the top 10 happiest countries in decreasing order, according to the given survey.
******************HN Rank******************
- Denmark 0.008 155
- Switzerland 0.006 6
- Austria 0.010 44
- Iceland 0.333 9
- Finland 0.064 41
- Australia 0.385 7
- Sweden 0.05 49
- Canada 0.313 12
- Guatemala 0.009 152
- Luxembourg 0.006 179
Going by HN in various countries I couldn’t find a direct relation to population density. This leaves us no where and our hypothesis seems fishy.
God might have some other distribution method for sure. Maybe equally per person, but then all of us would have been equally happy, which is not the case. However hard I try, I don’t get close to the answer. Perhaps, “God has his own designs”.
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