Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination

 Happiness is the most sought after feeling. But, it still remains an enigma. An enigma in the sense that it is very hard to define and characterise even after centuries of work by philosophers and thinkers on it. Hardly anyone can say what would exactly make a person happy in future. The reason at the core of this puzzle is that - "Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination." Happiness can't be studied objectively and assigned reason to it.

Our happiness is influenced by many factors. Our family, friends, colleagues, our health and the larger environment and society in which we live all play an important role in our being happy or lack of it. But in addition to it, there is a subjective element to it as well - our perception. Our perception of all the influencing factors and their actions. For it is our predefined mental maps, which in itself is influenced and shaped by our years of learnings and experiences, that interpret and assign meanings to the events.

As this perception, or mental map, varies from one person to other, the idea of happiness also changes. Some may find happiness in the sight of sea waves crashing onto a sandy beach in the red sunset. While some may find happiness in riding and surfing on these sea waves. This idea of happiness even changes depending on what one values more - the short term pleasure or long term content. The joy of having a heavy snack or long term satisfaction of staying in the good physique. It's all subjective.

In fact happiness and the idea of happiness even change with time. A team of psychologist at Stanford University studied a large number of subjects of different age groups trying to discern what happiness means to them, and they found a remarkable trend in the idea of happiness with age.

They found childhood is associated with the phase of life where a person is still exploring small, minuscule facets of life and they often feel uncared and unloved. Happiness for this stage of life is associated with excitement. Excitement over going to an amusement park or winning a sports match or receiving a box of chocolate.

This excitement driven happiness makes way for an ambition driven happiness in teenage and years beyond that. People in their 20s, the study found, derived happiness by achieving their goal. Getting into a  college of one's liking or getting selected into a sports team counts as happiness.

While during adulthood, happiness centres around the idea of balancing. Balancing professional life with personal life. Balancing office work with spending time with your parents. Balancing your own personal needs with your child's demands. All of these account for happiness.

And when people grow old and are in their 60s and beyond, happiness lies in savouring life. People find happiness in remaining connected to each other and feeling blessed for the life spent.

It is these varying perceptions of happiness with age and people that makes defining and reasoning joy in life with precision, unlike say any other biological activity, difficult. It lies a lot in our imagination rather than our reason.

Some philosophers and psychologist have tried to find patterns, at best, if not give reasons, about what is happiness. Epicurus, the Greek philosopher, related it with the idea of "ataraxia" - which means the absence of fear or serenity of mind.

While some like Mark Twain related it with the idea of helping others unconditionally. He opined - "The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer someone else up". This idea of selfless help resonates with what Lord Krishna had also said. According to Lord Krishna, Happiness is about "Nishkaam Karma" (selfless endeavour) that is working without expecting the result and realising happiness through efforts themselves.

So what then one should do te remain happy, if it is hard to find reasons for it? The answer to this lies in realising that happiness is a mindset and happiness lies within. With the right frame of mind, we can find happiness even in boring mundane affairs. This realisation is even more important in the present-day world of cut-throat competition, social media glare and virtual friends. Incidences of psychological distress and suicide rates are on the rise. In India itself in 2018, as National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data says, about one lakh forty thousand people committed suicide. England has even set up a ministry of loneliness and has come up with a stress-reduction strategy.

Hence, people need to acknowledge and appreciate happiness in underappreciated and taken for granted things. Being happy is equally important and in some sense even more important than being successful. As Bertrand Russel, Nobel laureate philosopher, in his book "The conquest for Happiness" aptly writes - "The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life"