HAPPINESS IS A RELATIVE TERM ......

            Long ago, as a curious and nosey young boy, I read a letter written to my father by my uncle. What caught my fancy was the sentence "Happiness is a relative term and that there is nothing called absolute happiness ......". Somehow this sentence has stuck to my spoken and written vocabulary. Initially I used to find it fashionable to mention this sentence in conversations to project myself as a thinking person. Over the years, I have started to understand the depth of this sentence. But then, what is happiness? Is it a continuous feeling or does it come in spurts. Like, suddenly coming across a beautiful song on FM while driving, or meeting someone you wished to see. Or is it materialistic like finding a hundred rupee note in the pocket of your jacket or hitting a jackpot. Is there a definition of happiness? Like, a feeling will only be called happiness if it lasts beyond a few specified minutes or hours? Or an anticipation of something good to happen as per your "expectation" in future? Whatever it may be, I have come to believe that it all depends on us only. We have to find our share of happiness. I admit that this might be easier said than done but believe me it is not impossible.

       I have mentioned the word "expectation" in the previous paragraph. This word is the sole cause of our happiness and sorrows in life. Our expectations often exceed our own capabilities and cause an imbalance in our life resulting in frustration and misery. Many a times we start wishing for something that the other person possesses without realising how & why he or she has it. Or, the fact that whether that possession has brought happiness to that person? We often envy a person we see driving a swanky car or living in palatial bungalow without realising that he might be having a hard time paying the EMIs of the loan that he had to take for purchasing the car or the property dispute he is involved in over the bungalow that he is staying in. This might come out as a pessimistic line of thought but all I am trying to say is that "All that glitters is not Gold". Or that every rose bud has a thorny stem. On the other hand, if we shun lofty expectations from ourselves and take a reality check, life would become much happier.

       Envy is more often than not, one of the biggest stumbling blocks between us and happiness. We often see people who are better off than us and envy them. We feel jealous of those above us, never realising that there are people below us also on the same ladder. Should we then not be thankful for being better off than so many others? But we keep cribbing for not getting what we desire, never stopping to count our blessings that have been bestowed upon us.

          Such simplification of happiness might be called foolish or escapist attitude by some. Agreed that you have to have wishes and goals to keep you going and working hard but then setting an unrealistic goal can only lead to frustration. A goal without a roadmap to achieve it can only make us venture into wilderness. Most of us are no Columbus and there are no Americas left to be discovered.