Happiness

Someone asked me how to be happy in life. I told him to do good things without expecting anything in return. He did not leave me, saying that good and bad are relative terms and that it is difficult to differentiate good from bad. I explained to him that any action of ours that generates positive energy in us is a good thing. Not convinced, he continued to be dogging. I have further explained that happiness is not an adjective but an output of our actions. And those actions witch can be justified against the yardstick of righteousness are good things. It is not possible to be happy without being righteous because both are mutually inclusive.

Many a time, people misunderstand pleasure for happiness though these two are different. Pleasure is an effervescence that gives temporary feel-goodness but fades away over a period of time. A spray of perfumes can give you a feel-good confidence about your personality, but the scent fades sooner than later; liquor can give you momentary high, but that also runs out within hours. On the other hand, happiness is the feeling inundated in you from doing a good thing is stable and long-standing. Try to remember a good thing that you did like providing succor to a friend or helping a stranger to tide over a financial problem and that you did both without expecting anything in return. Even if these things happened years ago, you could still be feeling the happiness of them. You can remember a pleasure but not feel, but happiness can be remembered as well as felt.  

Coming back to his point of how to be happy in life, he conclusively asked me this: so happiness is derived from doing good things without expecting anything in return. Right?  I smiled 🙂 at him, and he smiled back 🙂