Pursue Happyness In 2022

The ‘Happy New Year’ wishes on 1st January are conventional and largely practiced over other customary greetings that people worldwide exchange during religious festivals. This particular custom of wishing on ‘New Year’ day is something we all exercise spontaneously, by default. The 'New Year’ wishes are unceremonious and simplified in an abstract form. We all receive ‘New Year’ greetings via WhatsApp all the way from the eve of 31st December till the next day where they pour in in large numbers. All I do is select a few good posts that I have received and forward them to others in response to their greetings. I feel that there is absolutely no subjective occasion on the ‘New Year’ that relates to the individual or his real nature in essence when we greet him or her, like ‘Happy Birthday’ or a ‘Happy Anniversary’, or those wishes related to their achievements, etc. It is general and not an external stimulus, for it only conforms to the established practice. Unfortunately, the happiness and excitement in the Happy New Year wishes deplete within a few days, not lasting enough even for a fortnight.

This unoriginal exercise of forwarding texts, which I indulge in reluctantly, consumes almost half the day, hence I abandoned it a few years ago. But lately, since last year, I have made it a point to respond to such greetings for the sole reason that I came to know the effects after I investigated the real definition of ‘Happy’ in the ‘Happy New Year’ wishes. Then I came across one theory that ‘happiness’ has to be ‘learnt’ and practiced, whereafter it can even be spread. In short, it means that happiness can be even ‘created’ as per Eric Karpinski, the author of the book ‘Put Happiness to Work’. Karpinski states that by treating people kindly, happiness can actually be spread — for example, if a room contains happy and unhappy people, those most expressive of emotions will have the most influence. Karpinski’s theory is that ‘mirror neurons’ of the people surrounding those spreading happiness will most strongly pick up the emotions. As per science, mirror neurons are a class of neurons that modulate their activity both when an individual executes a specific motor act and when they observe the same or similar act performed by another individual. A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behaviour of the other as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons have been directly observed in human and primate species and birds.

The readers might be wondering why I have misspelt the word ‘happiness’ by replacing the ‘i’ with a ‘y’, restructuring it as ‘Happyness’; for I am convinced with its theory interpreted by Christopher Gardner (played by Will Smith) in the biopic ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ that was released in the year 2006. The film, ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ is the real story of Christopher Gardner, a bone-density scanner machine salesman, who had faced acute financial problems and was struggling to make ends meet. In the end, after a serious pursuit, he is unexpectedly appointed at the prestigious stock brokerage firm of ‘Dean Witter’. A must-see movie that narrates how Gardner had to sell three scanners per month to meet his basic necessities to support his wife and their five-year-old son. Unable to cope with his difficulties, Gardner’s wife Linda leaves him and their child. Thereafter, Gardner loses his apartment and is forced to live on the streets with his son. Gardner enrols into a 6-month unpaid internship as a stockbroker, at the end of which he might be selected for employment but only if he outshines the competition. In one scene, Gardner impresses one of the officers at the stockbroking firm by solving a Rubik’s Cube in record time to prove that he has a remarkable gift for numbers apart from his flair for sales. In the climax scene, Gardner is called by the heads of Dean Witter, announcing that he has been elected and from the next day, he has to wear a shirt and tie for it will be his first day as a broker. Gardner finds it difficult to hold his tears back. He rushes to see his son at daycare and hugs him with acknowledgement that they have made it through after all that pursuit. The word "happiness" in the title is deliberately misspelt just as it was on the wall of a daycare centre where Gardner once sought care for his young son. Chris takes offence to the fact that the word ‘happiness’ was spelt wrong on the wall. But the word comes to signify Chris' own pursuit of happiness. It can be interpreted that the way that “Happyness” was spelt represents an unbeaten path that we shall walk along together. The character in the movie, Chris Gardner, is a real person and states that the “Y” in Happyness represents “You” and what makes you happy. Essentially, this means “what is your purpose?” and has tangible ripple effects on one’s psychological and motivational wellbeing, our behaviours and, ultimately, influences our overall state of health.

I had comprehended that unless ‘happiness’ could be dreamt in the first place, it cannot be pursued and once it is structured with a design, we should have the courage to pursue such a dream to manifest it. Mere daydreaming cannot result in happiness. "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the unalienable rights which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their Creator and which governments are created to protect. Thomas Jefferson thoughtfully inserted the phrase ‘in pursuit of happiness’, indicating that it is something that we can only pursue and we cannot have it by chance, no matter what.

This can be simultaneously manifested by every one of us mainly through two concepts. The first of which is by constantly developing our character to have a positive and harmonious engagement with ‘others’, ‘ourselves’ and ‘our surroundings’. The second is pursuing the purpose that means the most to us as an individual, as we contribute towards the universe’s symphony with our unique ‘verse’ in harmony. If we continue to think of this concert analogy, what is the greater purpose of a large symphony playing their music? The answer can be the same for why our world turns.

The first step of this is simply acknowledging the fact that we are all capable of creating our own happiness. We must let go of the thought that our circumstances affect our happiness and we must tell ourselves that we hold the power to our own happiness. In other words, every thought or action we take affects the sculpture of our life. There is a myth that happiness is only accessible through luck. Mere luck in life might give impermanent happiness which will not bestow happiness forever, we need to pursue it. We are all capable of creating our own happiness and it takes only a bit of hard work and effort.

(The author had compiled original thoughts of several intellectuals in this blog for the convenience of the readers to comprehend how ‘happiness’ is defined in exemplary fashion differently by each of them.)