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.