Popular to the World & A Failure Within

The average life expectancy of a human being in the present is around 72 years and the same has been increasing year by year for the last few decades — these possibilities manifest because of the humongous research and development in medical sciences. On the flip side, even though human psychology has vastly been explored since Freud and Jung, the peers in psychoanalysis who proclaimed their theories of mind and behaviour of humans to the world, yet the complex mind had not been trained to attain happiness. People resort to religion and surrender to the theory that everything is the doing of the Almighty; which I completely differ from. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts of humans. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between natural and social sciences, where man has not been able to understand his needs and continues to crave for unwanted material possessions. No doubt the sufferings of human beings in general too have increased multifold, rather than happiness.

Remembering celebrities such as Elvis Presley, Micheal Jackson or even some from our Indian celluloid such as Meena Kumari, Guru Dutt, Savitri etc., what immediately strikes us is that they had extraordinary talent in their field, so was their popularity — but unfortunately, their personal lives were gloomy, filled with extreme grief, hence they did not live long and relish their success. Despite their prosperity, they had incurable sadness within them. Well, it's not just celebrities, but also many successful businessmen, highly qualified professionals and artisans, who could not handle their personal issues that bothered them. The humongous wealth or popularity failed to make them happy and rescue their lives. According to me, anyone who has succeeded and secured substantial wealth beyond his needs is no doubt a celebrity in his own category, but the sufferings of the mind are only due to lack of understanding of how exactly happiness could be attained. Success without happiness cannot be termed as success at all. Such people are present all around us but we cannot identify them for they all put on a brave front of falsehood that they are happy and so is the case with me too, but fortunately, I figured it out and took remedial measures before I could crack and this was possible by analysing my own mind without the help of an experienced analyst. Knowing more about how superior people thought and behaved helped me a lot.

From the minute one gets up from bed in the morning, everyone is focused on his priorities with regard to his job, profession, business etc., all with the objective to achieve happiness at least for the next few days, leave alone for the next few years. We all are aware that there are unlimited opportunities in life, that there’s a wide spread of choices laid out in front of us at every turn in life, but we fail to identify them. As a child, we all are innocent and concerned with only instantaneous happiness, not worrying about tomorrow. Wisdom only prevails gradually from youth with maturity. The influence of parents, teachers and society, in general, gives us the wisdom to make the right decisions.

I became immensely successful in the past decade but I realised that I was not happy at all for some reason. It was then that I realised that success is not related to happiness. No human could ever control the outcome of his actions, but those who had forethought various probable results of an action were never disappointed. We see many people successful in one way or the other but it's difficult to state that they all are happy and wealth definitely cannot guarantee happiness. “Life’s happiness,” according to the famous Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, "depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” The crux of the Emperor’s philosophy is the notion that while we cannot control what happens to us, we can control our reactions to the events of our lives, and this gives us immense strength and freedom. Marcus Aurelius discussed ‘negative visualisation’ in his famous book of thoughts, Meditations, which he chronicled every night before going to bed. Some people only remember the difficult times they have faced but not the privileges they enjoy as on date. By ‘negative visualisation’, Aurelius meant that one should foresee and be prepared for all the results of an action, so that he will never be disappointed. Unknowingly, I had always advised my clients along similar lines that, ‘one should imagine the end before the beginning’; but I failed to exercise such thoughts in my own case. Similarly, in the present, I too have taken certain radical decisions with one goal that the people around me, if possible, should see the world as I see — for the reason that ‘everyone related or associated with me is a coparcener along with me”.

Marcus Aurelius, the last of the five great Roman Emperors, was a noble soul and so is Warren Buffet, the billionaire. Both of them believed that discipline was the main factor for development and also that kindness and support to the needy was the way to happiness. The two most divergent factors of happiness are giving and taking or, in fact, it could be ‘acquiring’ and ‘distributing’ wealth to achieve happiness among all. One has to earn his living but continuing to accumulate wealth without giving it away is similar to excess body weight. Consuming tasty food, unmindful of the damage it causes and later spending on weight reduction by burning calories is an irony. One could have donated the excess food instead of burning it in calories later. It is for this reason that rulers of ancient India distributed wealth to the needy and deserving after performing the ‘yagna’, similarly billionaires such as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, JRD Tata, Premji and many more donate huge wealth for all social causes.

While giving a lecture at the University of Florida, an MBA student asked Warren Buffet 'What should one do to lead a happier life? Buffet relied that “When you do what you love, you create alignment between your work, values and the things that bring you passion and purpose. This opens up new possibilities as you learn what matters most for your life and business.” Please observe the mention of ‘values’ that Buffet emphasised. It is popularly known that Warren Buffet, when asked why he lives in an ordinary home when he could afford a large estate, stated that his residence has sufficient comforts for him and his wife and even though he had grown wealthier later, he finds no reason as to why he should move to a posh locality when there is no dearth of comfort in his present home. He also informed that he makes it a point to endorse and deliver many of the bonuses and warranties he gets in his investments to all the residents in his community area. Buffet delivers such tenders into the postboxes of his community himself. Warren Buffet believes that one cannot alone live in a paradise unless he shares his wealth with those living around him. Prosperity does not mean being 'prosperous alone’ and ignoring those who are around us. Buffet believes that when we are prosperous, those around us are also privileged to be as happy as we are. The common misunderstanding among us is that one should strive for personal enrichment that only can give us happiness, and to the rest, it is their own ‘karma’ or fate. Real happiness is to extend our shoulder to those who desperately require support which gives happiness to others and also within us. Ambitious parents are engrossed in building a strong financial base for their progeny, the main agenda behind their daily routine is to leave a legacy of wealth and fame to their children, hoping that they will live happily ever after, but often, it does not result in the expected narrative. I term it as ‘psychic entrapment’ with the wrong beliefs and theories.

One other person whom I should mention at this point is my friend BK Sarma whom we all call BK. My friend BK is a survivor of cancer. It was after four years of his new career in 1996 as a successful consultant for public issues that his malignancy of the lymph nodes under his jaw was detected and his life turned upside down. After a year and half in chemotherapy, BK began to recover from his ailment miraculously, but the medication took a toll on his heart. Because of his extreme command on the understanding of financial management which were always in consonance with values and virtue, he continued to render services only for a period 18 months when he made sufficient money for the security of his family, and thereafter, he almost retired. But rendering advice and providing contacts for the needy was a continuing routine as part of his daily itinerary, by extending favours one and all who approach him. He says that “I have survived cancer and the medication in the process to cure cancer has seriously affected my heart and now I have a CRTD.’ The machine CRTD is a sort of pacemaker with a defibrillator which has certain leads that are inserted into his heart to enhance the performance of the left ventricle so that it pumps the required amount of blood into the veins. He says that he had already lived his lifetime which was only until the day it was discovered that he had cancer in the year 1996, and the rest of the life that he is enjoying is a bonus. Many have not returned the financial assistance that BK had extended but he has no regrets. He says that I was one of the few who had repaid and acknowledged his favour. Every day, BK lives his life to the fullest and even at this age, he never says ‘no’ to any person who approaches him for a favour. He is popular among all his contacts, right from bureaucrats in high places and even among his childhood classmates and acquaintances. He shares his joy with everyone without any disparity, keeps none behind. BK’s business activity was for a very short span of time, but whatever wealth was residual, it had taken care of his comforts and he never aimed that he should have been equally or more successful than his contemporaries. As a dutiful son, he had taken extreme care of his aged parents too until they breathed their last.

Why are there only a few like Marcus Aurelius, Warren Buffet and my friend BK, who can be popular to the world as well as successful within their own domain with blissful happiness? I found the answers from the profound observations of Marcus Aurelius in his diary, ‘Meditations’, which I very often refer to whenever I have a few minutes to spare between the intervals of my assignments and emulate from the teachings of the great stoic Emperor. Confucius, the most popular Chinese philosopher, once said, “We have two lives and the second begins when we realise we only have one.”