The Solution to happiness

Its Diwali. You are very young, you like those little red dots. They burst when thrown on a wall, they burst when you use them in toy guns, they burst when rubbed against a wall. You enjoy rockets too.

You get a year or two older, and you enjoy those little crackers rolled in red paper. You burst them all day, in tin cans, under leaves, under rocks, in bottles. That and you enjoy rockets with little plastic men in parachutes coming out of them.

You get a couple of years older, and you enjoy those ‘atom’ bombs, the crackers wrapped in green rope. These are more potent with louder bangs. Now, you enjoy rockets with colorful fireworks. The larger the better.

You get a few years older, and you no longer find interest in crackers. But if you were shown the detonation of dynamite anywhere, you would perhaps leap at the opportunity.

Life is a little like that. The smaller things that we enjoyed as youngsters, we take of granted. They no longer interest us and we want more. We want bigger things. We want more exclusive things. We begin to lose track of what makes us happy and why. The wonder and amazement falls off the wagon and nothing we have or had seems enough. We compare and then we compare some more. The little things in life that should give us happiness no more do. Call it an inescapable journey which each of us must tread. Happiness is at a premium and our quest seems unending.

We often want to go back to childhood, when we were less jaded and those little red dots and flower pots gave us the most happiness in life. But we cannot.

We know we must find a way out, we know that we might never be able to go back to the innocence where the smallest of things gave us the most happiness, like a grandfather buying a cheap little plastic car. You were on top of the world! Today anything less than a nice plush real car would not give that kind of happiness.

So how do we get back to true happiness, the kind that we had when we were younger?

I don’t really know.

There are a lot of questions that each of us have. There are a lot of short comings. And answers are not always at arms length. This passage is not about absolute solutions.

As the old saying goes, a man must be taught to fish, not given it.
So here is the deal.

Knowing that there is a problem is the solution.
It is not the answer, but it is the first step to that basic happiness.

We all have issues and problems, and acknowledging that we do, is that first step to an answer – the prologue to a solution.

The truth is, answers to some questions we will never find, answers to some, we will in time. But regardless of whether we do or not, just knowing that there are short comings will help us build on ourselves.

Knowledge and acknowledge will help us know understand where we stand against ourselves. It will help us emerge as stronger individuals, aware individuals.

The first stage of a solution to happiness is in that acknowledgement.

Your Growth Path

Companies today create a growth path for their employees. This is usually an important prerogative of the company’s human resources department. It may not always be as effective as they think ofcourse, but brownie points for trying.

Now the reasons for this growth path being created are two-fold. There are the selfish reasons, and there is the selfless reason. The first and main reason is to try and retain employees and decrease attrition. The second one is to groom the better employees so that they might later be able to further the company and help it grow. These are the selfish reasons. As for the selfless reason, it is to make the employee feel good and secure, so that he or she might have something to look forward to and work towards, a little bit like the carrot and the donkey.

And of course the ‘selfless’ reason causes the selfish reason and hence it all seems to work out quite well for both parties involved.
Looks like a good deal? Well it pretty much is, on the face of it.

Now consider this. You as an employee have been given or shown a possible growth path. It looks like a lucrative path, one with interesting possibilities, the truth being in this particular field and company it possibly is. The money might not be too bad either.

But here-in lies the catch of life. And one must stay vigilant. This is a growth path that only leads you to where you might become what your boss’s boss is (Or something in those lines). Think about it.
Considered? Now answer this,

‘Do you want to become your boss’s boss?’

Answered?
Now think about this. Is that the person you wish to really become? And this means hook line and sinker.
Is that the kind of life you wish to lead? Those hours? Those responsibilities? Those kind of problems? Almost exactly that person life in most matters? Is that your best case scenario future? Does what he or she do really excite you the way you think it does?

Now think about this as well, X number of years to get there – is that where you want to be in those X stated years? Exactly in that position? All the sweat and toil, and is that really the position you want to be in, with regard to the whole package? Money, responsibility, kind of work, and kind of life? In short is Mr. ‘insert the name of your boss’s boss here’ the person you wish to become and lead a similar life if not the same? Is that who you want to work towards and be in a couple of years time?
Of all the infinite possibilities of what your life and this world has to offer, is your prerogative to become what your boss’s boss is today, a few years down?
Now also answer this,

‘Is that your best-case scenario future? Is that your life plan? Was it ever?’

It is at this point that you must ditch the well-travelled path and ignore the map signs and decide for yourself. Take the blinds off. School is out and we are right in the thick of life now. So answer honestly.

If the answer is in the affirmative, great! And good going! You perhaps should give yourself a pat on your back. You have the right ‘Growth path’ for you.

If not, then it’s time to rethink your ‘growth path’ and plan. Because, while a company will always offer you one, and with this you will feel secure and nice in that little shell of a life, you will be bound to just that. Eventually tunnel vision takes over and once the tunnel is up, it is usually quite late.

So make the right decision.

Choose the growth path of your life wisely.

The Threshold

What do you make out of the following statement.

‘Money can buy you happiness.’

Well as much as you might like to believe otherwise, yes, money can buy you happiness. The best things in life might be free, but more often than not, it takes money to let you find yourself in that situation in the first place.

Watching a sunset might be free, but watching a beautiful sunset in the right setting costs money. Loving might be free, but finding someone to connect and love costs money. Helping someone might be free, but more often than not these days, one does not have the time and so that costs money too!

One might define personal happiness on multiple levels. One finds happiness in the happiness of loved ones. Momentary as it might be, the buying of a new car, or house, going out and dining out at that lovely restaurant, charity!, Hiking out in the woods, pitching a tent in the wilderness (that tent costs money, not to mention getting there!), gifting something to friends and family, treating someone. All of these things cost money.

To live, to survive in this world, like it or not, it costs money.
Now that we have identified that money can buy you happiness to a certain degree and it is an essential, take a look at this other statement.

‘If money can buy you happiness,
Infinite money can buy you infinite happiness.’

Now despite the valuation of money described above, unlike mathematics, the two statements are not directly proportional. The truth here and now is in fact the latter statement could not be further from the truth.
The truth is this. We all have certain needs and necessities to be able to live a comfortable life. The way we have been brought up defines what this might be and to what degree money governs this. But the fact is there is always a threshold. Let us call it the monetary threshold. And once that threshold is crossed, money almost does not matter. Loosely, one might say it is the difference between a man who owns a billion dollars and a man who owns ten billion.

After a certain point or threshold, it simply does not matter.

When people often say to beginners in any industry, like – ‘don’t go after the money, concentrate on learning, and job satisfaction as these are more important’ they are speaking from an internal governing of experience. While they might not always understand the money threshold, they are using it.

To life a life of satisfaction, you must understand your monetary threshold.

Beyond what point does money stop to matter with regard to how you wish to live or what you want to do. And be honest about it. Know if working for those extra 10 years and really letting life pass in order to own that Ferrari is going to give you the happiness you crave. Know what your priorities in life are, and understand what and how much you really need to fulfill it and live life to the fullest.

Do not push yourself merely in competition with another person to earn more money. What works for him might not work for you. And they are in all probability just like you, pushing themselves because you are. Detach yourself from the crowd and understand what it is that you want and how much would that life cost.

You will be surprised suddenly how an extremely inflated number in your head becomes so much more attainable and make you so much happier and calmer.

Know that every rupee that is left in the bank after your death is a testimony to that extra time you wasted earning it, instead of spending it.

Find your monetary threshold.

Plan life accordingly.

The voice of reason

Unlike the paradox of the uncommon nature of the idea of common sense, we all seem to do exceedingly well with regard to reason. We all manage to live our lives with painstakingly great sense of reasoning, and logic.

We postpone certain ideas and jobs in favor of the ‘that makes more sense’ job in front of us. We decide to put on hold certain exciting plans in life because it just ‘isnt the right time now’, which is incidentally always between a year and five away no matter when we think of it. We make all the right decisions and live reasonable lives.

In short, our life mimics the life of mundane reason and maturity that increasingly improves with age. Also in short, to compensate for all of this lack of excitement, we live our lives through the eyes and lives of others – very much like the idea of when you wear an Armani suit, the essence of Armani rubs off you and you feel good about yourselves.
Or when we go and watch movies to escape from where we are and for that few hours we become part of this other life – that of the main protagonist in the movies.

Ever wonder why ‘Friends’ is one of your favorite comedies of all time.

We align our minds with those persons we would have liked to live like, be it a Kurt Cobain or Bear Grylls (of Man Vs Wild fame) or an Anthony Bourdain, Richard Branson, or that coolest guy or the hottest PYT today – basically anyone from leading DJs, travel/food show hosts to adventure daredevils, sports personalities, actors, politicians and other crazed celebrities who have dared to do and be more than most of us.

The right and reasonable decisions help us lead exactly the lives that they must – right and reasonable.
(The same thing everyone else is trying to do for some reason!)
Its almost like doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - better ones at that.

The only thing that really differentiates the people you want to be like from the people that you are or turning out to be, is that they chose to disregard the voice of reason sometimes and you don’t.
They see the bright red ‘skulls and bones’ sign all over the ‘right and reasonable decisions’ and clearly read the word ‘Danger’, while you clearly see the same danger sign and treat it like we do most things we are afraid of - like old age, death – with Denial.
'That happens to other people. It cant possible happen to me. Everyone else have missed something, but im doing everything right!'
Only it does happen. And before you know it, life is passing you by and you are in your mid 30s and 40s and still living your life through another’s.

So what does your voice of reason say today?

When your best just isn't good enough!

Sometimes doing your best just isn’t good enough.

You pour in your heart and soul, you work at something for days, sometimes months, years even; you work at something with all you have in you, and it falls apart. It doesn’t measure up to what you had hoped for, it just is not good enough or it just plain fails.
You are not alone. And it is more common than you think.
It happens.

It happens in relationships, it happens to something you work on, it happens to the best of your passions. And whats more, it happens to the best of us. Sometimes you missed a crucial ingredient in what you were doing, sometimes its because life is unfair, sometimes it was because of someone else’s mistake, and sometimes, just sometimes, its because your best just was not good enough.
Despite what you tell yourself, despite the reasons you make up, you just did not measure up this time.
A tough pill to swallow orally. An almost impossible pill to swallow for the ego.
And when this really happens, the entire concept of ‘try to not have expectations with what you do’, or ‘doing your best, and its all that matters’ is suddenly just some drivel a bunch of feel-good, do-gooders conjured to make losers feel better. And you feel like you are part of them. And no, it does not help, if anything it just makes you want to smack them in their faces.
It hurts, it pains, there is a dark hole inside of you, this ache of helplessness that you cannot seem of crawl out of.
The simple truth is plain as it is simple.

You failed.

It does not matter why you did at this moment, suffice that you did.
Deal with it.
Accept it, because it has happened. Know that it since it has happened, it is in the past and there is nothing you can do in the present to undo it. Accept it not because you are gracious or because there is no shame in it, but because it is the only real way out- not of just this situation, but to remedy it- to move on, looking to the future.

This is the one time you must climb out of that dark hole inside of you. And then you have to do this time and time again through out your life. Practice makes perfect. You must learn how to climb out of that hole without a torch or ladder. And after a while, it gets easier. The old folklore of a battered Richard of Bruce and the spider comes to mind (Even without the folklore, after numerous back to back military failures, he did eventually win Scotland’s independence after all).

But today we do not want to try again and again. We have become an impatient generation, full of requirements of immediate self gratification. After one or a couple of half or full hearted tries we expect triumph, whether we deserve it or not. Our egos have strengthened but perseverance has dampened. When pushed into that dark hole of failure, we gape, aghast in horror as if this was an unthinkable bad dream. We then expect that ladder to be thrown in, or better yet, an elevator be carved out of rock, as if it were our birth right. But it does not happen.

Use my version of Newton’s tweaked brilliance here- when pushed into a corner, push back (or else you fold).

It is time to climb back into that dark hole and get back out. Bruised and battered, perhaps a stone might come lose half way up, or a smudge of moss might cause you lose grip or balance, to slip and crash. Its time to endure a few bruises and broken bones, to feel that battered ego, to feed your soul, not to give up and sulk at your luck, but to climb out into the light, outside of that hole, to come out stronger. There is no short cut, there is no reason to wail and wallow in self pity or misery. There is no shame. There is only endurance. And endurance does prevail.

That is what will separate you from another. You will not be good at everything you do, but endurance will dig you out of that hole. This is what will decide who you really are, if you are worth your weight in gold, or yet another rotting tree trunk. Wallowing is easy. And you are intelligent enough to know that much.

Judge not yourself on your failure, but on your reaction to it.

This will decide not the outcome of that instance, but your life.

This right here will become your definition.

This right here becomes you.