We tend to use happiness and success every day or perhaps every hour of a day. Each one of us want to stay happy and become successful in life. Have we asked ourselves what is happiness and success? Does success has any role to play in our happiness? Are happiness and success interrelated or independent of each other?
Can we stay happy all the time?
Happiness is the art to stay mentally stable irrespective of the physical environment and level of possessions Happiness is an individual’s choice. It is not dependent on outside circumstances. It is rather dependent on which thought we create in every scene. For instance:- I have bought an expensive pen and feels very happy because I have created many good thoughts related with it. If by any means the pen falls on the floor and get demolished, will I be still happy? The answer lies in my choice that whether to get disturbed or angry or not. Not getting disturbed or angry means I am stable and stability is happiness. As being not diseased is being healthy, being not disturbed is being happy.
Do we get happiness after success?
There are two dynamics of happiness. First is, happiness after achievement. Second is, happiness while achieving. The first dynamic focuses on destination while the second one focuses on journey. Settings goals and aims are important in life otherwise we would become directionless. But when we tell ourselves that we will get happy only when we achieve our goals, we tend to compromise with our values and principles. We may also go on to hate people who has achieved before than us or better than us. We may also harm people whom we think are coming in the way of our goal. It is because everyone wants to be happy and making the goal as a source of happiness triggers a person to fulfil it by hook or crook. For instance:- Two persons, Raghu and Sarvesh have to carry out research work on Indian economy. Raghu thinks that he will be happy after getting appreciation on completion of the research work. While Sarvesh is happy that he got opportunity to carry out research work and thus happily perform his task. For Raghu, Sarvesh can not only come in his way of goal but also in his way of happiness, if Sarvesh presents research work better than him. To avoid hindrance in the way of his happiness, Raghu can bribe some people for not sharing data related with Indian industries, service sector, India agriculture, exports and imports etc required for the research work, with Sarvesh. Raghu can even go on to steal Sarvesh’s research work or destroy it. Therefore, Raghu is ready to compromise with his values and principles in order to get happy. While Sarvesh is happy while performing his task and thus is stable. Stability of mind provides him strength to carry out the research work with honesty and integrity.
Will Raghu be happy forever after he completes the research work and gets appreciation? The answer is no because Raghu’s conditioning says happiness is achievement. Therefore, once he has achieved he want to further achieve and will get bruised and hurt while achieving.
We will never be happy if we source our happiness from outside. What happens outside in the form of achievement, failure, act of people are the stimulus. Every stimulus leaves us with choices to respond. This is the reason we are able to feel good when we buy new sofa or mobile set. But after some days sitting on the same sofa and using the same new mobile, we do not feel happy. It is because the sofa was for physical comfort and mobile was for accessing information and for communication, not for making us happy.
Happiness is inner strength not excitement. Excitement is the stimulus which we get from things happening outside. We can’t be excited if we lose our jobs but we can remain stable in order to find a solution. Arunima Sinha in 2011 climbed Mt. Everest despite being amputee. She was able to do so because of the quality of thought she created irrespective of the situation.
Does interactions with people create happiness?
If I am able to create good thoughts while talking to someone,I am receiving stimulus. Response is within us. Between the stimulus and response, I have the freedom to choose response. In relationships people often behave differently from each other’s expectations. They want to control each other in order to be happy. In this way, our happiness becomes dependent on the other person.
Relationships and Interactions = Beautiful
Dependency = Weakness.
Happiness is not dependent on people. No one can make us happy and we can’t make others happy till we want to do it for ourselves. Similarly, no one is responsible for hurt, pain, fear or anger which we create. Hurt, pain, fear or anger are ours own creation in response to people’s behaviour. We have another choice i.e. response to stay stable.
What is Success?
Success is all about living our life the way we want to. Success means cooperation not competition. Competition creates rivalry, jealousy and insecurity. Competition driven person can never feel successful because he/ she is filled with jealousy and insecurity. The person will always be at loggerheads with other people in order to get top positions in society, at work place and even in relationships. And someone would always become better than him. Therefore the continuous insecurity won’t allow the person to feel successful.
The real meaning of success is different from our belief system. Our belief systems says we can be successful if we possess more than the other people. For instance:- For the people of society A, success means achieving more than the other people. If a person named Santosh in society A has more materialistic possession than the other people of that society, then he is successful. Tomorrow, if another person named Rohit earns more than Santosh, the society will no more consider Santosh as successful. So, the tag of being successful keeps on changing for society A with respect to the possessions acquired. Let’s take another example of society B. The people of society B believe that success is something that should be felt within and doesn’t require certification from others. Therefore, there is no competition in society B. People are humble, compassionate, empathetic and cooperative. This means Happiness Index of society B is high and thus it’s people are prosperous and mentally and physically healthy.
It is important to change our belief system in order to get successful and thus change our destiny. Since childhood we are taught how to speak,study, behave and so on.but no one taught us how to think which would have made a great difference. Our thought is the seed which produces our behaviour and attitude. Therefore the quality of the seed should be taken care of in order to produce fresh and healthy fruits ( perception, attitude, etc.).
Our thought is shaped by our past experiences, the information( everything we receive from our sense organs) and the belief system of our society. These three factors determine our perception, attitude, habit and personality. The combination of perception, attitude, habit and personality derives our destiny.
Belief system changes our destiny. It decides our way of living. We need to experiment with what we are learning in order to change our old belief systems. By shifting from “I don’t want peace”, but “I Am PEACE”, we change our experiences of life. When we experience the result of an experiment, it becomes the truth for us. Therefore, now the truth for us is that “we create our own destiny.” Similarly,If we believe success is about how much difference we have made in people’s lives, our nation would become inclusive. An inclusive society never degenerates and is sustained by its thriving cultures and rich traditions.
Every individual’s life is dependent on four aspects:-
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Emotional,( ability of understanding others emotions, differentiating between the emotions),
- Spiritual ( Realising the purpose of life and soul consciousness).
If we want to be successful in life then all the four aspects need to be equally balanced.