Friday, April 2, 2010

THE HAPPINESS QUOTIENT :-)

My Blog turns 'One' this month and I am extremely happy and ecstatic about it as I think I have done something meaningful in my life like Julie Powell in the Oscar nominated flick "Julie & Julia". So I would like to commemorate this blog to "Happiness" per se. Are you happy ?...Can you measure your happiness ?...What is the yardstick ?...I too am perplexed. According to a popular credit card company, there are some things money can't buy. The Beatles would put love on that list. Many people would add intelligence or talent. But surely happiness could be had for a cool one or two million dollars...What Say? After all, what person doesn't feel a surge of positive emotions upon finding a thousand rupee note on the sidewalk or at the thought of winning the lottery? If only you had a bit of extra cash to throw around, you could quit your job, buy an island in the Caribbean and relax on the beach for the rest of your life.

THE RESEARCH : Many psychologists and economists who have studied the relationship between money and happiness paint a different picture. According to them, you'd likely grow tired of your cabana in a matter of years. You see, people have an astonishing ability to adapt to all sorts of situations. It means you'd quickly grow accustomed to a life of affluence. A shiny red Ferrari and a new penthouse would be great for a while, but after a few days or weeks, their newness would wear off, and you'd go in search of the next best thing. Even surveys of lottery winners indicate that their initial joy at hitting the jackpot wears off in just a few months. To most including my younger brother, happiness can be bought with money. According to him, if you are wealthy enough, then you are happy...being affluent is the cure for all ills which befall upon us. By his yardstick, you can even buy happiness with the ample wealth you have created. If such was the case, then all wealthy people would never die of terminal illness, no wealthy couple would ever get divorced or be childless and so on...certain things in life will always remain in the hands of nature and the Almighty. I fail to agree with his opinion and many others who have this materialistic attitude towards happiness. In my opinion and even according to the researchers as explained above, Happiness is a state of mind and can be attained even without superfluous wealth. If you can tune your mind to get happiness out of the simple & little things in life, then I'm sure you will no longer long for material happiness...even if such a concept exists then most of the times it is momentary. To me, material happiness is akin to mere satisfaction of your long standing desires and wants. Me and my brother always have these never-ending debates on the dinner table about wealth and its effect on happiness if any, but alas neither of us emerges a winner. However, I am happy to learn that I am a winner to an extent within my mental faculties as to what constitutes happiness.

The one place that money and happiness are significantly linked is when a person is unable to afford his basic needs. There is an appreciable difference in levels of happiness between those below the poverty level and those above it. Homeless people in Calcutta, for instance, score a mere 2.9 on a 7-point scale of happiness, while multimillionaires in the United States rank themselves a cheery 5.8. Once people pass that poverty threshold, though, the money boost tapers off; Inuits in Greenland and Masai ranchers living in Kenyan dung huts are just as happy as the high-society Americans [Source: Begley]. So while the Warren Buffetts of the world are indeed more content than beggars on the street, they're not a whole lot happier than people who herd cattle for a living.Such data may leave all you lottery-playing hopefuls out there feeling rather dejected. But don't lose heart just yet...there are more effective paths to happiness than just hitting the jackpot. On a similar note, people also tend to report higher levels of satisfaction after spending money on experiences rather than things. For instance, purchasing tickets to a movie with a group of friends is likely to make you feel much better than impulsively buying a T-shirt at the mall. While the positive feelings associated with the movie outing can be relived again and again, the T-shirt's novelty will probably wear off after a couple of washes.

Basically, what all of this data about money and happiness tells us is that it's called cold hard cash for a reason. You can buy all of the flashy cars, Armani suits and diamond rings you want, but at the end of the day, you're going to be the same person...just with more stuff. Without the things that research tells us are the real sources of happiness...social connections, challenging work, success, good health...you're not going to get very far in your new set of wheels. So money doesn't buy happiness after all...but success does...as US president Franklin Roosevelt once said, "happiness doesn't lie in the mere possession of money but lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort"...working hard and thereafter having succeeded in any field whatsoever it may be. If you like what you are doing for a living then you will be cheerful and happy than the person who detests his work...money is just a by-product of that happiness.

THE 'SECRET' DEBATE : I hope many of you must have read or seen Rhonda Byrne's top selling "The Secret" wherein the basic tenet is that an individual's focused positive thinking and the "Law of Attraction" can result in life-changing results such as increased wealth, health, happiness and more. The book gained a high profile in the United States after being featured in two episodes of the Oprah Winfrey show. Other celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres and Larry King also reviewed and/or covered the book, and in each case expressed their belief in the system or skepticism of its claims. But the book has also reached a high level of notoriety and criticism from those who claim that the book misleads readers with its claims of positive thinking being able to influence a reader's life and real-world outcomes. The claims made by both the book and film have been highly controversial, and have been criticized by reviewers and readers in both traditional and web-based media. The book has also been heavily criticized by former believers and practitioners, with some going as far as claiming that "the secret" was conceived by the author and that the only people generating wealth and happiness from it are the author and the publishers. Others assert "The Secret" offers false hope to those in true need of more conventional assistance in their lives. In 2009, Ehrenreich published Bright-Sided: How the relentless promotion of Positive Thinking has undermined America as a response to "positive thinking" books, like The Secret, that teach "if I just change my thoughts, I could have it all". She worried this was delusional or even dangerous because it avoided dealing with the real sources behind problems. It encouraged "victim-blaming, political complacency, and a culture-wide flight from realism" by suggesting failure is the result of not trying "hard enough" or believing "firmly enough in the inevitability of your success".(Source : Wikipedia) I definitely like the positive aspect of the author's rationale in the book to achieve happiness and other things in life. But if you look at its criticism, then the same also holds true and cannot be ignored. So the world itself is divided and debating as to what constitutes happiness and how to attain it.

MY THOUGHTS : In my opinion, the happiness quotient (i.e. the degree/measure of happiness) changes with each passing day i.e. with age and maturity. When we are young and in college, most of us feel that happiness lies in the things we can't afford at that age...the luxurious mansion, the Harley Davidson, the Gucci dress or the Mercedes. But as we grow old and have fulfilled all our basic necessities and to some extent the luxuries money can buy, we are still looking for more material things to bring the " supposed happiness " into our life as one greedy pig. 'That is life' as the majority would say. Money can buy us all the material luxuries in the world and the 'Alexander type' happy feeling to have conquered it all with it (I would like to call it adulterated happiness, if at all it is happiness...better still it is false pride) but most of the times it cannot buy us the ultimate pure joy and happiness.

From my experience till date, the pure delight and contentment you get in : Giving (in whatsoever manner) to the underprivileged, paying for a poor child's education, putting food in an impoverished man's mouth, doing a small gesture such as helping a visually impaired man cross the street, meeting and partying with your long-lost school buddies, watching your kid excel at any sport in school, watching your daughter topping her class in school/college, getting her first job or even excercising towards getting healthy and fit lies on a much much higher pedestal than material happiness. Let me explain it with a personal example. With God's blessings, I could finally, after years of hard work afford to buy an independent personal car (though a material thing) for my better half (better late than never..ha..ha...no she kinda deserved it) but the feeling of happiness and joy it brought me was way more than if I had bought some thing equally expensive for myself. I hope you understand what I mean. The happiness which this gesture has embedded in my mind was not at all material and I will proudly take it to my grave. 'Just Give' and your happiness doubles...quadruples...it will be everlasting, but if you buy only for yourself your happiness will be very shortlived. The former kind gives you immense joy which is way more than you might get flaunting your luxurious Mansion, Armani dress, Solitaires or a Merc. Once you have conquered this level of happiness, I'm sure you would have attained the "Ultimate Nirvana". So wouldn't it be better for all of us, if we try to look for this kind of happiness in life and not just material happiness?(reiterating, I doubt if such a kind of happiness is true happiness at all ??? rather it in fact is impure; having side-effects full of persistent insatiability...Do send in your views and comments.