The Subtleties of Suffering and Happiness

 Let me just start by saying that we’re currently going through a severe psychological epidemic. Unknowingly, but we are. 

The world is driven, fascinated and obsessed with chasing happiness, as if it’s guaranteed at the finish line. A facade of happiness, where the world is filled with lilies and unicorns, where the air smells of roses and where each person is beautiful and kind and warm. In short, a problem-free, mushy life. 

In fact, many people have made careers out of lying and leading us all to this beautiful mirage. Most life coaches and gurus promise to be alchemists and pull you out of the sufferings of the world, but if that was all true, why do you still find yourself going back to the point where you started?

The thing is, suffering is inevitable. There’s always going to be something crushing you. There’s going to be a good number of heartbreaks, failures, regrets, losses and even deaths. Life throws a lot of crap and it’s okay.  So this, here, completely rules out the fancy concept of a suffering-free life. If anything, you can accept it to be as much as a part of life as happiness because when you do that, you become sort of invincible on some level. 

Happiness cannot be found in a problem free life. In fact, problems add a sense of accomplishment and meaning to our lives which in turn generate happiness, and that’s what makes problems more necessary than we’d like to think. To live a problem-free life is to have not lived at all. To generate true happiness, choose better problems, problems which seem worth the trouble. 

Lastly, there are chances that at different points of time, you’re going to lose things, people, which meant a lot to you and probably were synonymous to happiness for you. And this brings me to tell you that there are no catalysts to happiness. Associated happiness is only a temporary high, it’s never everlasting. These catalysts will change, and it will only drive you crazy every time you lose one and get another one, think of it like a cigarette. 

In my opinion, happiness is innate. You have to feel happy without depending on the outer world . Sure, they definitely help elevate your mood and make you laugh harder, but that does not have to be IT. You have to find your own happiness, and that begins by flying down into the realities of life and accepting suffering. Accepting that it’s absolutely normal to not be a happy sunflower all day, every day. 

And who knows, maybe you find your happiness sipping on a hot cup of coffee, Lord Huron playing in the background while you’re preparing for a tough interview, but you’re  happy doing that. Why? Because you chose that problem for yourself. 

Succinctly yours... Khushi!