Happiness Is Walking On Two Feet

By RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

Happiness is a sort of action, said the legendary philosopher Aristotle.

However, the fact remains -- how well we all know that happiness is not the same thing as pleasure or superficial enjoyment. Happiness is, in essence, deeper or even broader, as is true satisfaction, and fulfilment.

To pursue pleasure is happiness, for some. But, a more penetrating view is that happiness is active participation in something that brings fulfilment. This is a more, thoroughly dynamic concept of happiness. As Helen Keller put it, “Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

Human happiness, quite simply, cannot exist in a vacuum. The greatest enjoyment of which each of us is capable cannot arise and be sustained unless others around us are equally well-positioned -- to enjoy their share of happiness.

Reality Notes

It is, in more ways than one, an implication of our basic human nature -- because, of the way we are created. And, the most enlightened self-interest, in effect, as philosophers emphasise, must encompass a lively interest for the good of others. We are, as thinker Tom Morris states, inextricably linked. There lies the reality, or veracity connotation.

Put simply, true happiness goes beyond the realm of a fixed definition. The more one aspires to conquer happiness, the worse will be its resultant effect.

“True happiness’’, says former banker Amruta Kavuri, a homemaker, “depends on how one feels about it in real life. It comes from within. It is not dependent on outward circumstances. When our sense of well-being depends on things around us, we are in a fix. The best way out is to make conscious efforts and energise our deep sense of well-being, or strengthen, also broaden it, and make it more active, more vibrant.”

Adds Yashwant Rao, a computer engineer: “Contentment, of course, happens to be the key towards achieving a balance -- a sense of happiness. It is easier said than done. Because, happiness is, more often than not, gauged with wealth -- even though, in reality, wealth and happiness may, or may not, be synonymous.”

A case in point. Take the famous Polish proverb: “In a house of gold, the hours are lead.” Says Vikram Narayan, a corporate executive, “Happiness is a state of mind, and our attitude to life. It, therefore, differs from person to person.” Says Vinita Shenoy, a homemaker and teacher: “Happiness? Nothing more than a life well-spent, a well-maintained home, a sweet-willed husband and bright kids.”

To Vincent, a cabbie, winning the first prize with a raffle ticket, is happiness. For “Tambi” Murugan, a newspaper vendor, going to the cinema hall, on the first day of a new movie release, is supreme happiness -- a sense of achievement. The list is endless.

Delight In Existence

Happiness lies in achievement, rather than in possession, or satiation. As philosopher Schopenhauer wrote, “We need resistance to raise us, as it raises the airplane, or the bird; we need obstacles against which to sharpen our strength and stimulate our growth... To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.”

In his famous doctrine of validity, Madhvacárya, founder of the Dvaita system of Indian philosophy, or Vedanta, emphasised another keynote. He laid stress on the fact that emotional satisfaction does not make a proposition true, nor the fact that a particular belief may induce satisfaction. Yet, whichever way you look at it, happiness is a state of being. As Lizette W Reese wrote in “A Little Song Of Life:” “Glad that I live am I;/That the sky is blue;/Glad for the country lanes,/And the fall of dew.”

Writes noted psychologist and writer Daniel Goleman in his groundbreaking book, “Emotional Intelligence:” “Among the main biological changes in happiness is an increased activity in a brain centre that inhibits negative feelings and fosters an increase in available energy, and a quietening of those that generate worrisome thought. But, there is no particular shift in physiology save a quiescence, which makes the body recover more quickly from the biology of upsetting emotions. This configuration offers the body general rest, as well as readiness and enthusiasm for whatever task is at hand, and for striving towards a great variety of goals.”

Goleman also observes, “Happiness, psychologists are now concluding, seems to be largely determined by our genes, not by outside reality. However tragic or comic life’s up and downs, people appear to return inexorably to whatever happiness level is pre-set in their constitution.” “The idea,” observes Goleman, “is similar to the set-point concept in weight control -- a theory that says the brain seems to be wired to turn the body’s metabolism up or down to maintain a pre-set weight.”

Happiness Meter

Happiness, report psychologists David Lykken and Anke Ehrhardt from their “timeless” studies, can be pursued, but never captured. In their key finding, published in “Psychological Science,” they sifted through a maze of more than 2,000 twins. They wrote: “It maybe that trying to be happier is as futile as trying to be taller, and therefore counterproductive. This, of course, does not mean that there are no happy people.” But, happiness, they emphasise, maybe an “unalienable right.”

There is, as experts put it, more to happiness than happiness itself: the presence of a Happiness Meter. It simply states that you are either born happy or “born to lose.” Sorry. But, that’s the way it is.

From studying identical twins, born over a period of 20 years, Lykken concluded that the happiness set-point is determined genetically. Lykken describes the distribution of happiness as random, with almost no relationship statistically to education, income, professional achievement, marital status, or any other quality. The point is that not only some people are happy notwithstanding boring, dead-end, low-status jobs, and no money, it’s that they have almost the precise, identical chance of being happy as do doctors, engineers, artists, writers, editors, managers, corporate bigwigs, or even industrialists.

Life Positive

According to psychologists Edward and Carol Diener, who study happiness set-points, “It’s important for motivational reasons that people not be in a negative mood most of the time; an optimistic state of mind is a prerequisite to obtaining goodies like food, shelter, social support etc., Positive moods may motivate human sociability, exploration and creativity, and also produce a strong immune response to infections.”

Adds Lykken: “We are an extremely adaptive species, which is lucky for us when bad things happen... I’ll bet [the late] Christopher Reeve’s mood [wasn’t] all that different than it was before he fell off his horse.”

This is precisely the reason why we so often look into the mire of life, and say: Touché! Why? Because -- in the merry-go-round of our existence, time does not stand still.

Well, there’s also no need for us to cry wolf. We have to rally, and take the bull by the horns. More than that, one has to take the rough with the smooth, and the smooth with the rough. We ought to try, and try to be ourselves.

Yep, we also should try to be happy, whatever the reading is on the Happiness Meter. This is our only way to happiness.