Saturday, August 28, 2010

In Pursuit of Happiness

As Chris Gardner(read as Will Smith) says in the movie "pursuit of happyness" , "happiness cannot be achieved,it can only be pursued.."
The much clichéd and debatable topic and somehow I thought of penning down my two cents to it.
How much our life depends on things that surround us,and our happiness in turn depends on them.
We are all a part of this big system,trained to optimize things,to suit us best and give us the best feeling of happiness.We know these things as relationships,work,hobby etc etc.
We are psychologically trained to pursue them and optimize them in a particular way,a specific style and we work head to toe to make it look that way and as long as it looks that way we are happy,else we go sad.
I start a day with this feeling of positiveness and things start turning out my way.I meet my boss in the elevator and have a jolly conversation with him,have an enthusiastic good-morning with my colleague,get to see some interesting mails in my mailbox and to add cherry to the cake say I am given the good news of being bestowed with some award in due respect of my contribution to the company.Can something be better than this ? I say to myself..thinking seamlessly about how perfect my life is and how happy I am.A day as perfect as this is exemplary.
Whereas on the flip side,say after I enter my office. things turn out the way they were and suddenly I get called in a meeting where I am say reprimanded..wuhuu..seems like a bad day for me and here i am unhappy..

Another example:This one fine day I got up early,exercised,had super nutritious breakfast and things go exactly as per plan.I am happy so far,and while i am taking a stroll on the sidewalk that leads to my house that evening,I happening to hit into my ex.This moment which by far was so perfect seems to turn into a sad reality of my life.A live proof of my failure on one particular front.So what am i going to do now ?
Remain happy ?
Go Sad ?
Dont seem to think anything and pretend as if nothing happened and force myself with this feeling of happiness ?
Whatever you say the so called happy day has ended with a depressing and sad feeling and here
I unwillingly part with my happiness ?
Seems so vulnerable..aint it ?
So,does my happiness depends so much on this system ?
Well,ideally it should be something that comes from within,irrespective of what is happening around me,irrespective of what temperature is it outside,irrespective of whether bloody yamuna would go down in level or not,irrespective of the movie i saw,irrespective of the novel i read,irrespective of the conversation i had with somebody,irrespective of my ex or y or z..
Isnt it ?
Well seems so..
Seems like we need to get out the mechanics set up by the system and offer ourselves more choice.As Steven Levitt,the economist says,we need to get rid of conventional wisdom of what is wrong or what is right and define and find out ourselves the meaning of wrong and right,need to define our own moments of happiness and sadness.


Thursday, March 4, 2010

just like that

Why is it that we realise our real needs only after we are over with our not so real needs..
Since childhood I never really knew what I want to do in life.Years went by and by and I found myself grappeling with the fierce competition and toning myself according to the emerging market.
At my time it was the engineering market.And most hyped field was the software field.Until then it felt that the software industry was what i was destined to be in.Well then,years passed and I landed exactly where I had wanted..or should have wanted.But after landing here,there is this urge within me that keeps badgering me with the unknown promises I made to myself in my subconscious,the unknown desires that never really could find strength enough to make its way to the conscious.
Well now is the time,since the not-so-real is achieved,the conscious searches for the real-to-achieve within the subconscious,and ironically this search is so wrapped that it comes back to where it started,to the place where I am and always leaves a message which says "explore more".
So,is it really that difficult to know what we want to achieve in life ?
Or is it just nothing that we want to achieve ?
Zero is what we aim for then.This must be the fact.