To please or not to please...

Here’s one of the definite facts of our life experience – no matter which corner of this planet you inhabit – You can never please all of the people all of the time. (And if you are able to perform this feat of human behavior, do come over and meet me in person sometime, honestly...I will be beyond curious.)

For almost all of us this stands true – everyone around us is never equally happy with us all of the times – some are outright unhappy!

Have you ever noticed this bit of fact play out in your own life story? Do comment, and let me know.  

Getting back. I’ve observed there are some things we learn only after a personal brush with experience. This is decidedly one of those things. Mine has been most instructive. The whole idea of making others happy rests on a sticky premise to begin with. I’ve been there, too, driven by my basic need to be accepted and approved of and to feel happy about others being happy with me. What’s wrong with that, you might ask. We all endeavor (most of us, anyway) to be happiness seekers and givers in general. All noble sentiments – only thing, they’re misplaced by at least half the circumference of this earth.

My unabated and often unabashed effort to do just the above has landed me in plenty of situations where I ended up making a record-breaking number of people unhappy with me. I haven’t entirely untangled those knots yet. And might not in the near future!

Since then, I have profitably invested my precious time in learning how to prevent these mishaps in advancing years. This is one of my theories: The whole idea of making others happy all of the time distills down to living up to their expectations – about how much or how little we dress, if we walk or run, talk or maintain a studied silence, treat them (and their dogs) fairly and squarely and generally try hard to view the world through their lens!

I admit I’ve done all this. Though, not any more. I have changed. What is supremely important to me now is what I expect of myself. I would rather bet my money on holding myself to high standards at all times. This makes it pretty sure that there will be at least one entirely happy, satisfied, proud, and approving person in the room. That will be me.

I now draw the line at what others expect of me and what I choose to respond to or even notice. Seek and ye shall be given – doesn’t quite apply to this situation, I feel. It is a cardinal mistake to be what others think we ought to become. Though, I’ll say, it is annoyingly easy to fall into the trap of relegating our priorities, brushing aside our instincts, and getting swayed be the one who speaks the loudest and most often. Such people are rarely made happy, if you notice.

Someone wise said, ‘to give, we must first own’ and ‘we can give only when our own cup is overflowing with joy and happiness’. They knew this thousands of years ago, though we all learn it in our own time and have our own aches to remind us of the lessons.

Important conclusion here – be happy on your own first. Protect your happiness, get into the habit of being happy every day. Then watch how others align themselves to be happy around you, in whatever varying degrees they might choose to. Also, be prepared to watch a few distance themselves from you – some people don’t take the pure, unadulterated idea of happiness very well. It upsets them to not have anything to complain about. They are not your primary concern, though it will seem like that on the surface.

And if you are in special luck, those around you might even add to your own joy, because their cup is already overflowing. These are blessed souls that we all need in our life. Hold on to them. Good news, they don’t need you to make them happy.

Fortunately, that leaves all the energy and time in the world for you to focus on the important things in life, for example, being happy with yourself – and sharing it with others.

In the pursuit of happiness....

My three and a half year old niece, who was fretting about going to play school, was asked this question. Do you want to be educated or uneducated? Without a moment’s hesitation she looked us squarely in the eye and said – “I want to be happy!”

I learned that day.

We are all born experts at being happy. And yet there are shelf-full of books in every book store telling us about 10-steps, 7-ways, and 21-great ideas about ‘how to be happy’. It doesn’t add up. If we already knew to be happy, and God programed us so, then what the hell happened since then and now? Pun intended.

Here’s my take on it after observing myself falling into the (un)happiness trap more than once since I was a drooling toddler who always laughed and smiled.

As we enter adulthood, we learn that being happy means we have the responsibility to keep ourselves happy. As a consequence – we are held responsible if that state morphed into unhappiness for some reason. This is too much to ask in a day and age when switching channels can ‘do the needful.’ When we can’t find that right channel to put us in a good mood, at least we can blame the rotten programming of channels we pay good money to watch.

On a more sensible note: Being happy is on our hands. We make ourselves happy. And however unkind people might be to us, they seriously don’t have enough power over us to MAKE us unhappy. Unless, of course, we have granted them the power, in which case, we are puppets in their hands – much like the remote we click to toggle between channels. The feeling of controlling others is a heady one. Being controlled seems to have its own addicts. If those that control us are having a good time, let me upset the cart by saying we also derive some twisted pleasure in being driven by them. An unpleasant medicine to gulp, but bitterly true.

Another interesting fact about being happy that I’ve discovered. Big things don’t make us more happy and small things don’t make us less happy – in proportion. We are not talking physics and matter here. This is about the mysteries of the mind that we don’t yet measure in micro ounces. And thank God for that. I can safely say that looking for more happiness in more money, a bigger home, a pricier car, or a fancier job is just a trap. And here is how it works. If we can’t be happy with what we have we generally end up being unhappy with what we get. I think this is nature’s brilliant way to put the brakes on our wild-goose chase for more happiness.

How tough is it to find happiness, anyway? Very, I think. We aren’t supposed to ‘find’ it, we need to create it. And that’s where I think our confusion becomes messy and painful. It is not a thing that we can find. Happiness is about beliefs and related feelings that we create.

And if we understand that, then we can do two things to create happiness which I find very useful.

For starts, we can stop comparing our life with others to figure out what they have which we don’t. It is a big mistake and causes so much unhappiness. The only way to achieve all the good stuff in our life is to compare ourselves with ourselves. Now that is healthy and effective both.

Secondly, we need to accept that happiness is a paradox. When we find it right next to us, it stays. When we go looking for it, it becomes elusive. Rather sadistic, but that’s the nature of happiness.

I genuinely hope that in our pursuit of happiness, we become happy people. In my personal experience, happy people have a happy life.

Contentedness is in fashion...

Some years ago, I sat in a training program to observe the goings on. The theme was goal-setting. A clueless trainee with a dash of doubt said he wanted to be 'content' in life. The trainer locked their critical eyes on the participant and derisively declared that being content led to complacency and that was no goal at all.

I shuddered till my smallest vertebra and realized I must be in the wrong program or in a bad dream. One of those. What a gross misuse of one's position to distort the true meaning of being contented in life. And since when have we become critical of being happy and at peace with what we have, anyway?

I guess it is this mad world we live in that moves at speeds not yet calculable, and wipes out anything that fails to keep pace. En route it creates a monster of our mind and plays tricks on our imagination to make us feel less of a person if we weren't in a tearing hurry 24x7.

There is an archaic meaning of the word 'content' that meant, 'willing'. What if being content translated into a willingness to move forward with energy, enthusiasm, and enlightenment about the way forward. What if being content is a prerequisite to doing anything meaningful in our lives. Because frenzy and desperation seem to layer our life with more unhappiness. Worse still - our urge to conform to our rapidly changing world pushes us into a much more depressing state than even unhappiness. It's called emptiness.

I can't help thinking why so many high flying, high earning, fast paced, globe trotting professionals are as lonely as they seem to be. Try looking deeper into their eyes at an airport next time, and you will see what I mean.

And then again. There are those who are superbly successful and brilliantly happy! How did that happen? Maybe, they have cracked the puzzle of the most important goals in life. I am placing my bets on being contented and happy with what they got. No wonder success and more of everything just pours into their lives!

I feel so hipped about being contented in life that I think it is an enduring fashion statement. This draining frenzy must be a fad...hopefully, it will pass.