In the Hindi film, ‘Anand’, the cancer afflicted protagonist
chooses to be happy, despite facing a looming death. His foster sister breaks
down when confronted with his predicament. Anand tells her, ‘you weep because I
will die a few months later. Can’t you be happy now when I stand alive before
you?’
So easily, we choose to defer happiness. We believe
that we will only be happy once some stipulation is met... once we have made a
defined amount of money or once we have a loving spouse or once we build a
dream home. The well-known trap of such thinking is that it is interminable.
The habit of deferring happiness is difficult to stop. If we achieve the desired
destination, we simply create another, thus deferring happiness to an even
later date.
However, happiness deferral is not only a habit for long-term.
We are in the habit of suspending happiness until the weekend or even shorter periods.
If we have a sprained ankle, we think we will be happy when we have a chance to
rest or when the applied balm takes effect. When the pain subsides, we fill
find hunger or some other thing that makes us defer happiness all over again.
In any situation, if we are habituated to deferring
happiness, we keep doing it. It really makes no difference whether we are
deferring it for 15 minutes or 15 years, because in either case, we are not
happy right now. The only getaway from the trap is to constantly tell ourselves
that the time to be happy is now! Not next month, not tomorrow, not later, but
right now!
It does not matter if we have a sprained ankle... it
does not matter if we are hungry... it does not matter if the dream home is yet
to happen. Happiness is something that can be ours in every moment, without
exception. We must choose to be better at being happy without linking it to a reference
point.
Defeat the trap of happiness deferral...
BE
BETTER at finding joy without referral!
- Pravin K. Sabnis
Goa, India.
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