Improve your Happiness Quotient
“A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.”
Bernard de Fontenelle
The quote above presents the entire solution to the enormous happiness problem of the entire mankind today.
You feel sorry for people who have everything and yet they are unhappy. Yes, I feel those who have a lot lesser are happier.
Let me illustrate this with a simple but crude practical example.
The most expensive toilette in the world has everything made of pure gold.
Yes; The Hang Fung Gold Technology Group owns claim to the most expensive toilet in the world. Rumored to be worth around $5 million (depending on the current price of gold), this golden beauty is housed in a bathroom made entirely out of gold. That’s right — a bathtub, toilet (Potty WC), trash can, and even toilet paper set that are all cast in solid gold. It is a golden Throne. In INR it is 35 Crore.
Imagine if the owner of such a bathroom has a severe constipation and has not been able to eat a morsel for last five days, haven’t been able to sleep and could not shit for last five days, how good he would be feeling looking at that golden thrown? In contrast imagine a simple man who would go cross the road and shit happily in a public toilet and return smiling asking for a hot cup of tea and a hearty breakfast.
Who is happier? No prizes for guessing. Google it?
If you can eat well, sleep well and shit well- then all is well and you should be a happy man.
You don’t have to be a millionaire to be happy. A Chicken sandwich from KFC or McDonald tastes the same to a millionaire as it tastes to another ordinary man. The day you understand this and understand it properly you will never feel miserable or run around earning your million dollars you have been looking for.
I am not saying money is not important but how much money is good enough is the name of the game. You have to draw the line; no one else can do it for you.
“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”
Erich Fromm
As someone said: ‘In every house there is one room less’
You long for a two bed room house. Once you get it you start saying ‘Wish I had one more room for my guests’. Once you get three bedrooms, you still want one more room for your TV which you are happily watching every day in your large bedroom. You have a balcony, you then want a bigger one, and then you want a garden, then a bigger lawn, then a backyard then a pond and a fountain.
Where does it stop? No; it does not stop until you stop. It is good to be progressive and ambitious but in the right proportion. Not over progressive and over ambitious. This appropriate happiness proportion is the most difficult to understand and extremely difficult to achieve. The day it happens you are on cloud 9.
Five year Test
If you lose something or are unable to get something take a five years test.
It is simple, ‘Think and imagine what will be its importance after five years from now?’ Alternately ‘How would you feel about that loss after five years?’
You will laugh out loud. For instance you lost your expensive wrist watch or missed a flight, or didn’t get nominated for a project or didn’t get too many thumbs up for your post, you feel heavens have fallen. Chill man, why five years, you will forget that in six months only. We get upset for things which are not very bad and definitely not earth shattering.
Sometimes you envy a dog or a pup that is sleeping happily on a small heap of sand under a tree and you are still looking for an Air conditioner.
During our army exercises in deserts during summers, where temperature used to be touching almost 50 degree Celsius, you could not even touch the steering of a jeep you would be lucky to find a clean glass of water and a small shanty tree to rest under. A water body to take a dip was the ultimate luxury.
“To be content doesn’t mean you don’t desire more, it means you’re thankful for what you have and patient for what’s to come.” Tony Gaskins
Luxury is relative and so is happiness.
We are so lucky to be living in an era where man has made enough progress in every field. It is the hard work of thousands of years of millions and billions of people which has given us so much comfort. Housing, water, electricity, medical advancement, computer connectivity, cars and aircraft, tourism and hundreds of avenues of entertainment, several white goods to make us comfortable. Think of all these good things and you can thank god for these things which were not available to our own ancestors just 50 years ago. Look for happiness and not too much of Zillion-ish happiness and you will be happy.
There was a guy who got fed up of life and wanted to end his life as he had no money with him. As he was about to jump off a bridge into a stormy river below he was stopped by a monk who asked him ‘what are you doing?’
‘I want to commit suicide.’ He said
Monk- ‘But why?
Man “I have no money”
Monk “what if I give you $10,000- but for that I will take something from you’
Man ‘I have nothing to give- my pocket is empty. But what do you want?’
Monk ‘Can you give me your right arm’
Man ‘No way’
Monk ‘Ok your right leg for $20,000’
Man ‘No’
‘Ok shut your eyes for five minutes and imagine you cannot ever open them. Or imagine you have gone blind.’ said the monk. Man tried and after a few minutes opened his eyes and thanked the monk that he could still see. Now he could actually see the correct point of view.
Monk said ‘young man just for two limbs I was offering you 30,000 dollars- imagine your whole body which you wanted to finish would be worth millions.’
It was an eye opener for this young man.
Another short anecdote
A man was sitting on the beach under a coconut tree and on a small makeshift hearth he was frying his fish- he had two freshly fish taken out from the sea which was sizzling in his simple frying pan and he was enjoying the look of the almost cooked, slightly brownish by now, and enjoying the aroma of the fish which he had quickly marinated in spices and some oil. His mouth was watering.
In the mean time a rich tourist wearing his Rolex watch donning expensive T Shirt and shorts wearing expensive shoes and a Cannon camera walked by and asked this fellow ‘Hey buddy what are you doing?’
‘Sir I am frying two fish which I just caught. Would you like to try? Wait for a few minutes’ he replied.
‘No thanks, I have a meeting to attend .Why didn’t you take a small boat and got a few kilos of fish and sold them for a good sum and earned some money?’
The poor man says ‘But what will I do with that money?’
‘Then you buy a bigger boat and get more fish and make more profits and make more money.’ replied the businessman.
‘What will I do with that much money?’ He asked
“You buy a trawler, go deeper into the high seas buddy and get tons of fish and make tons of money!” said the guy in his Yanky accent.
‘Sir what will I do with so much money?’ The poor guy asked.
“You do whatever you like, whatever you love! Buy the way what is the best thing you love to do?’ asked the tourist excitedly.
“Sir, I just love to fry my fish under the tree and eat it, and relax”
The Tourist had no more suggestion for him.
Hope you get the point.
Earn as much as it is good for you. No point of earning Billions and then losing your sleep looking for ways to distribute it in Charity!
“Most people think they need MORE to succeed; more money, more power, more time, more friends, more fame, more ideas, more prayers, more knowledge. They have never considered that less is actually sufficient.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson
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