Pursuit for happiness and Then What.

In this episode we explore the pursuit for happiness. Happiness, such a complex and simple word at the same time with each one of us perceiving it differently too. We often spend a lifetime in the pursuit of happiness, feeling glimpses of it but somehow always feeling that we need to pursue even more! Well, join me on this podcast as I speak about the ‘then what’ formula and how we can use it to get clarity and of course ‘happiness’.

Transcript

Pursuit for happiness and Then What.

Hello Everyone and welcome to the podcast of the Ordinary Maverick. This is Ajey, your host, an ordinary Maverick sharing real life thoughts and experiences and Maverick tips. If you haven’t hit the subscribe button yet, please do so, and you’ll not miss another episode.

For a minute close your eyes and think about the smell of freshly baked bread in the house; the crunch of pani puri in your mouth…pani puris are little puffed up balls filled with a tangy sweet and salty special liquid, the feeling of watching a million stars in the clear night sky in Namibia; catching a glimpse of the elusive leopard while on safari, watching your child enjoy an icecream, laughing crazy during re runs of the old Laurel and Hardy shows, or the Tom and Jerry cartoons! Well…all of these experiences and many more give me that warm, fuzzy feeling deep inside. And this is what I feel is happiness. 

The definition of ‘Happiness’ in the dictionary is ‘the state of being happy’. It’s an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment and fulfillment. It’s actually quite a difficult word to define and is quite subjective as it’s an emotional state…something which a person feels deep inside.

Sonya Lyubomirsky, in her book, ‘The how of happiness’ in 2007, describes happiness as ‘the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful and worthwhile. Many books have been written on happiness over the years and lots of research and studies done on the psychology, sociology and neuroscience of well being which is intricately linked with the feeling of happiness.

Happiness is something that we know when we feel it, right? Often, we use the term when we experience joy, pride, contentment and gratitude too. It’s when we are satisfied and fulfilled. But how do we get there? I mean, think about it, to feel satisfied and fulfilled one needs to know what one wants, right? Let me say this again….to feel satisfied and fulfilled one needs to know what one wants in the first place.

So here’s where our word for the month comes in…Pursuit. Many spend years in the pursuit of happiness and still feel they haven’t found it. And there in sets the feeling of discontent, unhappiness, frustration and just being sad. It can be a vicious cycle of running behind something that one feels will make one happy and then getting it but still not feeling quite that happy or not getting it and feeling unhappy. Gosh! Sounds crazy, right? 

But here’s my take on it…2 words..’then what’. Use them frequently. Let me expand a bit more. Often, we feel that if only we had that car, we would be happy. Or if we got admission in a particular school or college we would be happy or if we got this job, we will be happy. So, here is something that we’ve tried to do in our own lives. Ask this question, Then What? Like, if we got this car, then what? You may answer then it’ll be easier to get around….so then ask yourself again, then what? You may answer, then life will become easy…don’t have to wait for buses or public transport. Then ask yourself again, then what? Ok…then I will save some time…ask yourself again then what? Then I can spend more time at home….and then what? Then I will be happy as I really really want to spend time at home! So, you get the drift. What we are doing here is basically just pushing ourselves to really get to the bottom of this ‘satisfaction and fulfillment’ feeling. As these are the feelings that ultimately lead us to feeling happy. Doing this kind of ‘Then What’ analysis brings some clarity to our own minds and it helps us really get to that warm and fuzzy feeling of happiness when the car actually comes as we know we are on the right track of what we ultimately wanted…which was spending more time at home! I call this the ‘Then What’ formula…ha ha.

We did that when we were buying our first house. That was an experience by itself. We were living in Mumbai city in India at the time and real estate was exorbitantly prohibitive for first time home owners. It was a dream to own a house and youngsters struggled to have their own place. It wasn’t that easy to get loans as well at the time. Well, we started off looking for houses in the suburbs of the city, in areas which were kind of being advertised as new developments etc etc. Weekend after weekend was spent going from one apartment to the other, trying to figure out what will fit in our budget. Nothing did…..and we were getting more and more frustrated and feeling distinctly ‘unhappy’. And then we stumbled upon this ‘then what’ formula….quite by chance, I must say. My wife (fiancé at the time) and I sat down and asked ourselves let’s just imagine we have the house, then what? And then what? And then what? And by the end of this, we had one of our first ‘Aa Ha’ moments. It suddenly didn’t matter WHERE we bought the house…meaning the address wasn’t all important. What was key is buying our first home and the feeling of it’s ‘our place’. And the ‘then what’ exercise showed us that this will help us kickstart our home buying dreams and give us that ‘first home happiness’. And it’s not the address, it’s just the fact that we are home owners! And of course, we’ll have other homes later and can always ‘fix’ the address. But what’s right for us at this point is getting our own home. Our first apartment was out of the main city in one of the far suburbs, an upcoming area…but you know what, it didn’t matter. And I have to say, the day we moved into our own place was one of the happiest days of our lives. We’ve subsequently had other homes and have been changing addresses over the years and believe you me….the Then What formula has always worked in our decision making and each home has given us that warm fuzzy feeling of happiness.

You know, there’s a great article about the history of happiness and it’s pretty fascinating. Somewhere in the 18thcentury there was this notion that happiness was the attainment of a worthy life. And then this just grew and grew and interestingly paradoxically this happiness bit can create pressures that can actually make us miserable. Understanding this better helps us to manage expectations and not fall into this paradoxical trap. Happiness norms are defined by the culture and our environment….and then into family and work expectations and then when these are not met it results in frustration and disappointment. Too much of expectations leads to more dissatisfaction and it’s harder to manage these …often resulting in the opposite feeling of unhappiness.

Like the expectation in a society that one must own a home to reflect success. So now living upto this as a young couple, trying to buy your house in an ‘accepted’ socially apt address can result in frustrations and ultimately make you unhappy if you’re unable to achieve this. And then of course it’s very easy to spiral into further frustrations and then land up in an unhappy state…..far away from the pursuit of happiness! 

But if you can look through all this, and really dig into what is it that ‘YOU’ want …not influenced by everything around you…then this pursuit of happiness will be successful. Remember the ‘then what’ formula? Ha ha.

Here are some interesting pieces of information. You might have heard about the happiness index. It is a comprehensive survey instrument that assesses happiness, well-being and aspects of sustainability and resilience. This index was created by the Global Happiness Council which is a new global network of leading academic specialists in happiness and key practitioners in areas ranging from psychology, economics, urban planning, civil society, business and government.

Each year, the World Happiness Report is released on 20th March, which is the UN’s International Day of Happiness. The report ranks countries on a scale of 1 to 10 and measures national happiness. Several factors have been shown to influence these rankings ranging from GDP, social security, health care, freedom to make life choices, generosity, perceptions of corruption etc. Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world four times in a row. The other top ranking countries are Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Netherlands. Interesting data here and one can always check out your own country’s ranking on the website of the Global Happiness Council. Now, it’s a bit different in Bhutan, a country known to prioritize happiness.  Bhutan follows the philosophy of GNH or GDH – GNH is Gross National Happiness and GDH is Gross Domestic Happiness. This includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population and this is instituted in the Constitution of Bhutan in 2008. The 4 pillars of GNH are 1. Sustainable and equitable socio-economic development, 2. Environment conservation, 3. Preservation and promotion of culture and 4. Good governance. And the nine domains are psychological well-being, health, time use, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards.

So, Fellow Mavericks, you can see how complex happiness is! And very subjective and personal to each person. Here’s my humble take on this pursuit…keep it going, keep it strong – yes. But use the ‘then what’ formula and push yourself for clarity on your path and achievements. Believe me, that will definitely give wings to your pursuit for happiness.

Do keep writing your comments and sharing feedback at ‘theordinarymaverick@gmail.com’ and follow me on Instagram #theordinarymaverick.  I love hearing from you. This is Ajey, signing off and wishing you have an amazing day and a super amazing year! Keep well. 

This podcast series was put together as a team effort from the Bhardwaj family.  Concept, design, title, researchers and reviewers: Ajey, Sanjana, Avantika and Niharika Bhardwaj; Script– Sanjana; Cover design – Niharika. All rights reserved.