I have
always been enthusiastic about what is happiness and how to obtain it. This
curiosity and interest had led me to read several books regarding happiness. I
always wondered what is the definition of happiness or maybe there’s no
definition for it as it varies from a person to another. Books about happiness
also vary from one author to another. So, the question here is what is
happiness? Or is this question unanswerable?
Everyone
has his or her own way of pursuit for happiness but I came to derive that the
difference is the duration and the truthfulness of the happiness. The duration
is how long one can feel happy and the truthfulness as in the degree of
reasoning for the happiness. What I meant by true is how close does the cause of
your happiness relate to your core self. In fact, this two actually correlates
each other. The closer the factor of happiness to yourself, the more true the
happiness, the longer you will feel happy. Happiness which are gained from
external stimuli or condition such as getting a sports car are often short term
while internal happiness such as having a good personality often last longer.
In all the books I had read, I took a liking for the ones from Buddhism teachings. Everything in the world (or I should say “almost everything” because I yet to know about everything) tends to return to equilibrium, as the equilibrium is a perfect state of everything. When an extreme arises, it causes changes to its surrounding resulting an opposite force to arise an equalize it. At equilibrium or in Buddhism they call it the middle path, the state where no force opposes each other. It is a state of pureness and calmness with no nonsense, no illusion, no development, and no destruction, which is defined as the perfect state of happiness in Buddhism context. I find this interesting so I put it in practice and see how far can this theory fits in everything. Heat transfers its energy from a medium to another to reach equilibrium; water evaporates to fill in the empty space in the air; too little nutrients in the body will cause diseases likewise too much nutrients too will cause diseases; “If it weren’t British that ruled India violently, Mahatma Ghandi might just be another old wise man in India.” a great spiritual guru, Osho quoted.
One’s
happiness can be the cause of one’s suffering. As taught by my lecturer Dr.
Cheavens in Positive Psychology class, one of the factors of happiness is
attachment or engagement. This is true; with an untrained mind, attachment and
engagement are the fundamental factor for self-fulfillment (satisfying the self
and feeds the ego). However, this could also be the reason for the opposite
feeling of happiness, suffering. In this all-ever changing world, there is one
thing one cannot avoid, which is changes. Everything changes in a millions of a
Nano-second but these changes are too minute that people disregard its’
existence and kept on thinking that things are permanent and always the same.
Clinging on to them and feel happy about the sports car they own, the beauty they
have or the power they hold.
As i mentioned in my previous blog:
By this, I am not trying to be a pessimist and I did not mean that these are all useless, what I’m trying to say is, if we could cut away that strong attachment to all these worldly materials, we could feel a different level of happiness which is more lasting and true. These things are there, they can belong to you; you can use it, calculate it, organize it but be conscious and aware when you are, then the strong attachment string will not tie to your soul.[Try this, when u are overjoy, when Serotonin rushes into your body, when your mouth starts to widen and smile, when you think of nothing but that joy(not even the nail u stepped on..=P) when you lost your awareness about the temperature around you, that sore neck of yours, that homework due tomorrow, that debt you need to pay, DRAW BACK YOUR ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS.)
Although you will find it less joyful, but this kind of practice is healthy for your mind not to get attach to things that are temporary and unreal sometimes.
As i mentioned in my previous blog:
By this, I am not trying to be a pessimist and I did not mean that these are all useless, what I’m trying to say is, if we could cut away that strong attachment to all these worldly materials, we could feel a different level of happiness which is more lasting and true. These things are there, they can belong to you; you can use it, calculate it, organize it but be conscious and aware when you are, then the strong attachment string will not tie to your soul.[Try this, when u are overjoy, when Serotonin rushes into your body, when your mouth starts to widen and smile, when you think of nothing but that joy(not even the nail u stepped on..=P) when you lost your awareness about the temperature around you, that sore neck of yours, that homework due tomorrow, that debt you need to pay, DRAW BACK YOUR ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS.)
Although you will find it less joyful, but this kind of practice is healthy for your mind not to get attach to things that are temporary and unreal sometimes.
Like how i end all my blogs with a quote:
"Some happiness are not genuine happiness, it is a feeling constructed by various lies and illusions of your own perception about the world." - Junior
Last day of 1st semester *wink*
