Happiness is an Enigma

What keeps you happy??

Family? Money? Love? Friends? Property? Career? Traveling? Adventure? Peace? Entertainment?

Everything? or Nothing?

The trouble is not *where we look for* but it is *what we look for*. The problem is here - We do not look for happiness. Instead we look for problems and develop a feeling that solutions to these problems will provide us happiness.

Happiness is a state of mind and how often a person is happy, has got nothing to do with how well things are going for him/her. The 'Art of Living' course says a human mind keeps postponing happiness everytime it finds it. "I will be happy when i go to college. I will be happy when i get a job and earn money. I will be happy when i get married. I will be happy when my son/daughter grows up. I will be happy when my son/daughter gets married."

I personally believe that the tendency of human mind to look for problems is less got to do with its inherent nature and more got to do with the impact of civilization which eventually created insecurities and an illusion of a need to be dependent on external entities to be happy. Moreover, the idea of not being in control of something leads to helplessness which in turn leads to unhappiness.

We have too many of our own mental blocks summed up with the road blocks created by the society and the expectations to be met which are set by our own self (need to buy a car, need to clear an exam) and by the society (need to have a decent job to find a nice mate, need to speak good English to live a respectable life). Things don't seem to be any better. Do they?

Actual problems apart, human mind in itself looks for problems in everything, creates problems out of nothing. Such mind-sets are easier to cure. A positive mind-set with a optimistic view about life would help in such cases. Being afraid of future, anticipating negatives all the time are clear indications of a disturbed mind.

I have been reading a couple of research articles on happiness and that made me to write this. All research points to one thing. It also, in a very simple manner suggests a very simple secret to happiness - a) Live in the present to be happy about it. Have a positive view about life and future. b) Presence of people whom we love and who loves us is the most practical way to find happiness. Looks simple. As always, anything that is simple is not necessarily easy. Again, you have all the rights to be happy.

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, But they didn't take the time to stop and enjoy.. Take time to stop and enjoy.. Be happy..

A Fools Paradise!

Consumerism is an interesting term; dictionary meaning says “the belief that it is good for society or an individual person to buy and use a large quantity of goods and services” it is interpreted as “its good to spend money” in corporate world. And they provide more than enough opportunities for it. Open any website, before you get what you want half a dozen others sites open fast, each one is offering you something at surprisingly low price. They will also guide you through the procedure. Just you have to click where they point. It’s done…...life made easy.

Every morning I open newspaper hoping for some news, I see flashing advertisements. There are equal advertisements in a newspaper as news (if not more). I often think why they publish newspaper for news or for products! To spend half an hour with television is torturous enough, within a span of 5 min they will sell us each and everything that we don’t need at all or at least can do very well without them. There are minimum 5-7 calls on mobile either it is an insurance agent, car salesman, ringtone /dial tone offer or someone else but one things for sure whoever else is on the other side, we don’t want him and we are irritated. Mobile companies send dozens of SMS offering a Santro, Maruti, latest cell phone. Their free or economic offers end with “conditions apply /charges apply” a decent hint that we are being fooled. So nice of them!

Everyone is trying to sell us something, on internet, in newspapers, on television, mobile, everywhere! That doesn’t matters whether we really need it or not, they don’t bother to ask, we must buy, buy it because it’s for sale. That’s what advertisements do exactly, selling us things which we rarely need. A man must buy Raymond, Park Avenue, Bajaj Discover, if he wants girls falling for him, him or his possessions I am not sure. A girl must use Fair and Lovely for girls should be fair if they don’t want to feel inferior, if they want to marry a good, nice man with loads of money. What a creative mind! One must have a credit card so that one can spend foolishly. Credit cards are not illogical but the way of telling us is absurd.

Its not only products that are being sold, emotions too are marketed. Friendship day, Valentines Day, Parents Day, Fathers Day, Mothers Day (mother, father and parents are different products) as if we love less if we don’t spend money. Love and respect have a price tag. Still there’s no brothers or sisters day, I am sure it will, some day. Patriotism is new bandwagon, few days’ back a fierce campaign was going on: to vote for Taj, our national pride. Almost all mobile service providers sent SMSes, however the SMS for Taj coasted Rs3/- while in normal conditions its 50p or 1Re, whatever, but it’s not 3Re. The business mantra seems to be “fool them, fool them any way”. It’s not about relations, patriotism or services its all about money. Release a product, create the demand, tell people that they need it and then sell. And surprisingly we do! With fast lifestyle and ready plastic money, less time is devoted to think, analyze and decide.

It may appear strange but spending money has marijuana like effect, it helps us forget frustrations, heart breaks, boosts ego and we thought money cannot buy happiness!

This world is a shopper’s delight! Spend money, shop, shop till you drop and be happy!

Open Spaces and Obliterated Privacy

U.P. CM Ms. Mayawati is the latest victim. The case is: someone created her fake profile on Orkut and loaded it with objectionable personal information. By the time state home ministry could gather its arms and ammunition to nail the culprit, the profile disappeared. Smart move! It happens to everyone, to all of us, but since she is a high profile victim, she deserves a place in newspapers. Any social networking site, be it Orkut, My Space, Names database, Groups or Blogspots poses danger to our privacy. Loading profile means risking our privacy. Girls are the favorite targets. Don’t believe me? Just load a profile in the name of a lady and see the magic. During my college days boys in my class used to have two email IDs. A professional one and another by the name of a girl this because they found that people are not interested in chatting with them as males. Things haven’t changed at all. Males go head over heels to befriend a lady in any open space. Ever since we have entered in this open, global world we are at risk of being watched, spied, and interfered by unwanted persons. I have come across several suspicious persons as I mentioned. Here are some who don’t post or read anything, they just wander, spy others and pass comments. Be it a lady or a gentleman, one is sure going to be irked by nonsense scraps. But people don’t care, infact this is a mode of entertainment for them, they think themselves very smart and intelligent. Seasoned users are smart enough to load fake profiles and cautious about hiding their identity, but threat still remains. We think we are fooling others by a fake profile who knows we might be fooled by the next person in the same way? Personal information loaded on an open space is there for everyone to see and anyone can copy it. We never got to know whom we are communicating with: genuine or imposter? Our email ids are open. Though every site promises not to reveal personal information but I can’t believe it or else how come there are half a dozen faltoo mails in inbox every day?

I came across a real incident last week, my friend was furious, snapping at her ex-fiance in every possible manner. I was surprised at this behavior as she used to praise her ex 15 times a day even after their engagement broke down due to family conflicts. Now suddenly this change in attitude! Later in the evening I came to know that she visited her ex’s profile on a social networking site and saw the “married” marital status. What was eating her from inside was, I suppose that he settled before her. Though she says she has nothing to do with him, she still visits his profile occasionally. Call it anything, concern, regard or “just like that” but I’ll call it spying. Its not that others are disturbing us; from this incident I think we are interfering in other’s life and creating troubles for ourselves. We are losing our peace of mind for no reason at all.

Take cell phones, despite being the convenience they offer they are a headache. Everyone owns a cell phone but very few people know the etiquettes of keeping it. Some don’t even take care of time; ringing whenever it comes to mind, some use it like a toy: sending missed calls one after another. Imagine your cell phone ringing when you are on something important, and you know the person has nothing serious. Some send missed calls to tell they are remembering us and
expect to call back, I feel like kicking such persons. Even grown ups behave like teenagers, sending SMS after SMS as if it’s a substitute for conversation. Personally I kicked several so called friends of mine for such an immature behavior.

Its not that I have some special distaste for these things, mobiles, internet have become an essential part of life; what worries me is this invasion of our personal zone. All the etiquettes are on backseat. We intrude in other person’s life and the next person in ours. We are living on a round planet! Everything that joins us with the world invades our privacy. This is the price we are paying in a global world for a global cause.