Where have you laid your happiness line?

Walking top ‘f wet grass on foot
Gazing at those glitters on sky,
Thinking ’bout my next dine to root
Dancing, singing my heart so high.

Wandering inside riddled barks
Screaming and Scaring that stout rat,
Sleeping on mud clothed rocks
No riches, to drink money and fat.

Ay thou eat gold chocolate
To pleasure thy gland;
Given, I’ll eat scrap-left foil and elate
As I time travel to my tender land!

If diamonds mark happiness‟ thine;
Thou stand x-miles below happiness line!

Almost all of us run behind things that give pleasure and we miss notice of the one that gives joy. Happiness is the golden key to open the doors of success. However, what is the key to happiness?

Have you ever sat patiently and asked yourself,

“what’s my prime source of happiness and am I running all day long to get that source?”

The above sonnet titled “Happiness Line” is all about noticing the small things that derives the pure form of happiness. As people chase false pleasures, the real happiness gets faded as childhood memories. On a daily routine of 9 to 6 job, where stress and anxiety becomes a habit, where one weekend off to the nearby lake is actual happiness.

“What is real happiness?” Let us understand from the verses below;

“Walk on top of the wet, dew filled grass on bare foot”;

as you walk, the chilled water on that soft grass would calm you down and take you to another world. You tend to forget all your worries and pressures of the unsatisfying chaotic world.

“Gaze at that glittering stars on the night, in silence”; the stars in the
sky would interest almost all of us. Starring at them at the very night when whole city is silent, would make you travel deeper into your thoughts and you would not even know where you‟re travelling to, but the bright twinkles of the glittery sky will surely give you insights about many riddles in life and answers many unknown puzzles that trouble you during the day.

“Try fasting the whole day for no reason and eat at night”;

this will sound insane, but have you ever waited for food as poor wait for theirs? For people below the poverty line, eating one meal in a day is a dream, while here, we people in the city waste food without a second thought. Those people who starve for food know the value of it. They roam everywhere in search of food and when they get it; the happiness in their hearts is incomparable to anything in this world.

“Dance and sing your heart out like no one is watching”;

we all have one or the other anxieties. We fear about what others might think about us. We become anxious about being judged. Remember: You have to take care of yourself first and you are your foremost responsibility. You need not be a professional dancer or singer to make your heart smile. Just set yourself free from your “jail of anxiety” to taste the drug of happiness and to get high.

“Try trekking or just walk into a forest”;

walking through those gigantic trees with thick barks will make you realize that age does not matter to brace each other and stand high with eternal wisdom. The path to wisdom isn’t easy but is indeed possible. It takes immense hard work to remove the thorns and make a clear path. All the wear and tear gives you the experience to walk through the difficult path of life.

“Scream aloud in solitude”; when no one’s around you,

scream as loud as you can. Scream out all your frustrations and anger. Let it go out! Imagine yourself standing in a forest and shouting and as you walk, you see a stout rat passing by your side and you choose to scare him just for fun. It hides somewhere for a while, then accompanies you through the forest. Don’t these small things fill your heart with extremes of happiness and take you to a euphoric state?

“Try sleeping on mud covered rocks when the sun is up”;

the sun’s warmth during the mornings energizes and refreshes your body. It gives you a sense of enlightenment about your life’s purpose. While plain rocks are hard, the mud-covered rocks are like old metal beds with soft cover. Tribes living in forests, do not have proper sheds hence, they choose to make tents wherever they feel like. Such a life is hard to live but the enjoyment is splendid as it is real!

Poor unlike the rich cannot afford luxurious items to feel satisfied, yet one spoon of grain earned with hard work is enough to satisfy his hunger. For some it is not the quantity that matters, but what matters is the emotion with which it was done. “One spoon of food of the poor ones’ night dinner” is what happiness tastes like.

Now the question is, “Can’t money buy happiness?” Some people might feel pleasure by being able to afford the expensive worldly things like a fancy car, but indeed not the feeling of contentment and happiness. If we go off topic, it comes as a known fact that chocolates can reduce stress, anxiety, etc. and makes one feel happy as it has tryptophan, phenyl ethylamine and anandamide that helps in release of serotonin, endorphin and dopamine in our body. However, for some who can barely afford a meal a day, chocolates are just as gold. If a costly chocolate is given to the poor, instead of just eating the whole chocolate, they will chew the wrapper of that chocolate where few tiny pieces stay stuck, and if you remember, this might be the same act that we have done in our childhood. As children, almost every one of us have lived life happily with smile filled days and nights. However, as we grew older, we forgot to nurture the child in us. We killed that child for the riches of the “maya” world.

Nothing in the world can buy happiness, but, happiness can buy everything in the world and that‟s a proven fact from the studies done by Richard Easterlin and Brickman, Coates (1978). Researchers used the Cantril ladder, a scale developed by Hadley Cantril, U.S. psychologist; to measure happiness amongst the people of the world to generate the “world happiness report‟ and the results found that wealth does not define happiness. India ranks 133rd in position in the ‘World happiness report (2018)’ sourced by United Nations.

Do you think this is called “moving towards productivity?”

There are millions of benefits that underlays happiness, some of which are “You will start approaching life positively, you will radiate your positivity to your fellow beings, you will be treated better and looked upon high, you will feel energetic and confident enough when you see yourself laugh and smile, you will be able to bring out the good in each and everything you do and more importantly, you will start living life, instead of just spending days.”