Finding Happiness

What is happiness? like love, it's a word that's used freely in our everyday language, probably without a proper appreciation for its meaning. What makes one happy? Is finding happiness the driving force of life? Why does it always seem impossible to achieve?

I've been asking myself a couple of questions lately, ones that should be trivial to answer. Am I happy? When was the last time I remember being consistently happy? Instinctively, my answers are "NO" and "The last few months in Bangalore". Given that I'm in the US, attending a top university, and presently enjoying a five week break with no immediate commitments or responsibilities, it is disappointing that I'm not happy with my life. Here, I will try to look back at my year and consolidate it in my mind, while trying to articulate the reasons for my unhappiness.

Historically, my personal writing has taken a hopeful note. I've been good at writing in a way that leaves me hopeful and energized. But that hope has typically not been realized, and that energy has typically been allowed to fizzle out. My attempt here is to be more realistic, keeping in mind that the years are, in fact, slipping away, and I don't seem to be blossoming into the person I imagine myself to be in the future. I certainly don't find myself becoming wiser with age.

As always, there are multiple ways to spin things. For example, my year-end review could look something like this - I did well job and was given a sizable salary increase. I secured admission to a number of top universities (including one which was my self-proclaimed dream). I enjoyed a wonderful last few months in Bangalore, a city I love, with some of the best friends I've made for a while. I spent a good few months at home, reading, traveling, clicking pictures, and spending time with family. I moved to Austin and had a great semester where I did well in my classes, secured a promising internship for next summer, met people from all over the world and made some good friends, attended some fun concerts, and now spending my winter break relaxing and catching up on reading and writing. This is the superficial image of my life that is presented to strangers and acquaintances, and even people I'm close to, to some extent. Life seems great. But then, it's not. Pictures lie.

One of the challenges every man faces, and the key to finding greatness, is to know one's own heart and be at peace with it. This should be easy, but it is challenging because social appearances must be maintained, and it's not possible or acceptable to be completely honest with everyone, all the time. It's easy to get lost in the lie, to keep the mask on even when looking in the mirror.

Why am I not happy? As can be expected, this is a complicated question, with no simple, single answer. But while a convoluted, vague, and wordy answer may look good on paper, it will not help me find happiness, which seems to be the point. If I had to give a single answer, I would probably say "I'm not happy because I don't work hard". This, in itself, is a complicated answer. Do I enjoy working hard? I would instinctively say "No", but I think that's a lie. Whenever I've truly worked hard at something, and regardless of whether I've been successful, I've felt happy and content. Wait, I'm not completely sure about the effect of failure on my psyche, but in principle, I believe in hard work.

Why don't I work hard? For fear of failure? I don't think that's the reason. For fear of something? Probably. It's not fear of the unknown. "An unknown fear of action" is probably the best, and completely useless, way of expressing my fear. I've tried and failed in the past to articulate this fear in a way that might be useful, and I continue to try and fail. Working hard would seem simple enough - a matter of personal choice, and something so many people do every day. Yet, it is indescribably difficult for me. When I inevitably make the choice to while away my time - most often by playing Dota or endlessly watching TV - I almost always have a tinge of guilt immersed in my thoughts, thus ensuring that I neither fully enjoy the immediate gratification of those activities, and nor do I do something that I perceive to be useful. It's almost as if my own dark spirit is reaching out from the abyss and whispering in my material body's ear, convincing it to drown itself.

Normally, at this point, I would've made lofty promises to myself (and to whoever is reading this) about how I had finally figured it all out, and how I would turn it around tomorrow. Despite numerous such promises, it hasn't happened so far. At least part of the reason, in my opinion, is that I haven't dug deep enough. I don't know my own mind well enough.

Another answer that readily comes to mind when I ask myself "why am I not happy?" is "because I'm lonely". Ever since S, I have been lonely on some level. I've told myself (and everybody else) in the past that I'm okay now. While it's true, it's also not. It has been like this for a while. Thoughts of her occur - they are quickly brushed aside most times, and are allowed to linger sometimes. What parts of it do I miss? I don't know. I can't remember. All I know is that I was building a future in my head based on a shared life that turned out to be a lie, and now I've forgotten how to build a future for myself. Make no mistake, I was broken before she happened. But I honestly believed we could have fixed each other. Part of me believes that I will find someone amazing and everything will be alright, and that part keeps halfheartedly hoping, like an idiot. The other part believes that I can never again feel the way I did, and it keeps looking for short term fixes, like an idiot. These short term fixes are rare enough to come by, and they do not help.

Like most things, the right answer to the issue of loneliness is also known - work hard, do things worth doing, and focus your life on the right things. It would seem that doing that would kill two birds with one stone, and solve the problem of happiness once and for all. But it's a naive, childish and platitudinous answer. From experience, it is not realistically implementable in it's simple, idealistic form. Specific answers are needed. And equally importantly, an unbroken chain and record of thoughts is needed to keep oneself honest. Ironically, that requires as much hard work as anything else.

Happy Birthday, My Friend

You will never be forgotten. I wish you were still around, we would've had so much to talk about now that I'm finally in the US, pretending to study. I'm sure you would have found your way here too, by now.

And I never said sorry (more to myself than you) for the time we missed out on, despite sharing an apartment in Bangalore.

Musings #2

Just came across this song again, after a long time. Netsky - Come Alive.
It's interesting, how things are associated in memory. As soon as I started listening to it, I was transported back to my birthday last year - weed, whiskey, push ups, music, noise, neighbors, and a trip to the police station. Fun.

Musings #1

The last time I was in weather like this was in December 2012 in Delhi, after Harry died.

On Starting

Note: As usual, I've ended up talking about nothing specific. But I like letting my mind wander, especially when I'm recording thoughts. It calms the waters. And perhaps surprisingly, it doesn't take too long. This is a start.

My problem always has been starting something. Not finishing. You can't finish unless you start. And you will finish if you start. It's easy to get distracted, to spend careless amounts of time doing things that are not important, because those things are easy. Are the things that need to be done difficult? Usually not. They're certainly doable. But I make them difficult by not doing them, by letting myself waver.

Take journaling, for example. I've been wanting to start writing again for at leas two months now? I've gotten really close a couple of times. I've even thought of things that I really want to write about, and of really cool things to say. But I've consistently let them slip, often without even rationalizing it to myself. My brain is too random, too variable. It has a limited attention span. While something that bothers me is in my consciousness, it causes constant discomfort, a dull numbing pain that is not strong enough to motivate me into action, but that is not weak enough to ignore completely. And over time, by not addressing these things, I have become really good at letting them slip out of my mind - by thinking about something else, by wasting time in progressively less creative ways - because novel ways of wasting time soon become habits.

It's simple really - figure out what's important to you, work hard at it, succeed. Simple. What if you don't know what's important to you? That's okay too. Work hard anyway. Succeed at something. If you don't like it, try something else. But don't do nothing. Unfortunately, doing nothing is quite comfortable, especially if there's no strong motivation driving you. I recognize that I'm not a very motivated person, but perhaps by consciously recognizing that I limit myself - I allow myself to waver and justify it by telling myself that it doesn't matter to me anyway. If that were completely true, if it didn't matter to me at all, it shouldn't have bothered me. But it does. So perhaps it does matter, then?

I read an interesting article the other day, about how people usually mess up not because they're not god, not because they don't have potential or brilliant ideas, but because they want to do everything and accomplish everything at the same time. There is wisdom in realizing that anything worthwhile requires patience, persistence and hard work. There are no two ways about it.

I'm not bad at coming up with plans. I'm not bad at understanding things, and talking about amazing ideas, and thinking about how I can be amazing. I usually know what needs to be done. It's about time I started doing it.

A Eulogy For A Friend

Harry has passed on.

As I embark on this difficult task of writing a eulogy for him, I know that there are no words I can write which will do him justice. Yet, I must. For myself as much as for him.

My earliest memory of Harry is from the first year of college. It had been only a week or two since we had joined. Most of us were experiencing life away from home for the first time, and everyone was reacting differently. Kishore took me to Ujjawal's room one day, and I met this unassuming, chilled out surd who somehow looked a lot different from the typical "surd" image that had been created in my head in those few days in Punjab. He talked about music, movies, football and other geeky stuff I could totally relate to. And he seemed quite uncomfortable in uttering abuses which seemed to flow quite naturally from most people's mouths.

We quickly became friends. He was as big a Manchester United fanatic as I was, and we watched all our football together, often having to scour the entire campus to find a TV in some hostel that was playing the right match. We started participating in coding competitions and such together, and did other geeky stuff together. I looked up to him since those days. He knew so much, and he taught me that you could find the answer to anything if you looked hard enough.

We watched the 2008 UEFA Champions League final together. Manchester United against Chelsea. It was an amazing game, and right in the middle of our final exams. There were only a few of us crazy enough to ditch studying mathematics, load ourselves with chips and soft drinks, and spend the whole night watching the game. It was an epic night, one that will forever be etched on my memory. I was so happy by the end of it that I was jumping around in joy, treating everyone to my mom's brilliant homemade sweets. Harry right alongside, of course.

Our friendship deepened as time passed. Even though I was living in a different room, I spent a lot of time in Harry's room in the second year, especially during exam time. None of us studied till practically the last night, and everyone handled it differently when the last night came. We were among the lucky group who knew how to exploit the system and ended up getting decent grades somehow. I was always pestering him for help, though. I remember one particular evening when Harry, Ujjawal and Sam decided that we should wrestle. I was left gasping for breath, and everyone had tears in their eyes from laughing too much.

His indecisiveness was legendary. He took his own sweet time making his decisions, be the situation big or small. He was not easily swayed by what other people had to say. But once he made a decision, he stuck by it - and they were generally good decisions.

Being a gamer naturally goes with being a geek, I suppose. All of us loved to play games! There was this phase in the third year, when we had all moved to the J Hostel, when we started playing multiplayer Unreal Tournament - Harry's favorite game. He was the most excited of all of us, and of course the best. Being football freaks, we also played a lot of FIFA together. Our contests were epic. We usually had days - either he would kick my butt or I would kick his. I still remember the day when I beat his Spain with France in FIFA '09, when I was down to 10 men. FIFA geeks will understand the meaning of this.

A few of us stayed back in college during the summer vacations after the third year, to attend classes for CCNA. It was a weird 9 or 10 days - the heat was oppressive, and everyone wanted to go home. Harry was the only one among us who actually completed all 4 modules of the certification.

Placement time came in 2010. It was an exciting time, everyone was moved into action. I was lucky enough to be selected for an internship at Juniper Networks, alongside Harry. I was very happy that day, for I knew my association with Harry would continue beyond college. When I got placed at Goldman Sachs, it was a bittersweet, because I knew Harry was really keen on this job, and his name was in the final three, but only two were selected. It would've been epic.

We came to Bangalore together for the internship, stayed together in clumsy room at a paying guest accommodation, made our first honest buck together, and had some truly spectacular experiences - the most notable being witnessing Wayne Rooney's bicycle kick winner over Manchester City at the official United Bar, and then attending a Bryan Adams concert the next night. My leg was in a cast, which made the weekend even more epic!

We ended up taking a flat together with Gunjeet when we started actual jobs after the internship - he continued at Juniper and I moved to GS. He was always moving around the house with a football at his feet, kicking it against the walls. I think it helped him think. He was obviously doing brilliantly at his job.

He was always calm - I've never seen him get really angry at someone or raise his vocie (The only time I've seen him irritated is when people called him "Rose", which was his nickname!). He was infinitely patient - I've seen him on the phone for hours, trying to help his dad figure out what was wrong with his modem. He was witty and fun - he could poke and irritate people without uttering one abusive or angry word. He was always confident, always moving forward, always looking for the next best thing, and not afraid to reach out for it.

My last memory of Harry is us dancing around like idiots at a foam party, then watching the second half of a football game and playing pool. And then, me saying "good luck" to him that fateful morning as I drifted out of sleep for a few seconds as he was leaving.

I miss him. I miss him when I watch football. I miss our crazy conversations and stupid arguments. I miss being jealous of him because he was so amazing. Now, I'll never have the chance to try to beat him. I probably wasn't his best friend, but he probably was mine. And I'm not ashamed to say I'm crying as I write this.

His father said that even though he'd had a tiny life, his son had made him proud.

His screen name was "reallyunreal". It was just perfect.

Be at peace, brother. And shine on!

Don't Forget To Be Awesome

I am awesome.

Well, sometimes. And of late, I guess I'd forgotten to be awesome. And as I've been realizing, the key is to let the awesome version of me control the idiots, and thus increase the percentage of time I spend being awesome!

On a related note, I found this blog. This guy Joel Runyon is awesome. Whatever he says is pretty much along the lines of whatever I've been thinking of late, and it's good to know the thoughts of someone who's already done what you're trying to do. Get disciplined, not motivated!

In his words: "If you want to do something, just freaking do it already."

I've piled up quite the reading list of late so I'm going to go and start reading and being awesome.