What is Happiness?

This post is about one of my longest discussions ever (6 hours long). The discussion is about “What is happiness to you?” Before starting with the theme, I should introduce you to the 4 people among whom this discussion took place.

Rahul: (a.k.a Saladi, ITEM) My childhood friend (family friend and 1st-4th classmate). It is difficult to describe him in a few sentences; he deserves a blog post to be written in his name. Well, in a few words, he is a sheer genius, an all-rounder, and a famous ITEM one had ever seen (he surely agrees to this). Most of our thoughts match.

Ravi Kiran V: (a.k.a Pilla) Got close to this guy in second year. One thing you will first observe is his height. Anyway, this guy is a good dancer (my guru), guitarist, player, and an all-time flirt. If you are close to this guy, he will do anything for you. (Doesn’t really agree with you quickly)

Srivatsava Daruru: (a.k.a Daruru, Dadda) This guy is highly talented. Topper of our batch. Great philosopher and a poet. Plans to do lots of things but doesn’t really come into the limelight. Right now in Texas Austin doing his MS. (Well, this guy actually thinks twice before doing anything)

Avinesh P.V.S: (a.k.a Avi, Avigates) Well, nothing much about this guy. He has lots of plans. Gets inspired quickly from anything. Tries to do all things, least bothered whether he can or not. This guy’s mind is very fickle. Only thing is that he has lots of thoughts in mind and ends up implementing few things (good thing is that at least a few things are done). About his aspirations and dreams, I will need another post.

The story goes on like this:

It was the day Daruru got his bike. The rest of us thought we have to get a treat from him and we all went for dinner at Olive Gardens. We came back to college at around 00:00 hrs. I was the initiator of this discussion.

Avi: “What is happiness to you? Is it money, fame, power, or anything else?” (theme derived from a Hindi movie).

Ravi: “Happiness to me is money. I want money so that I can buy gifts for others.” (He is a gift freak. He likes to give gifts to people close to him).

Daruru: “Well, for me money is very important”.

Rahul and I were like, “What is the point in having money, stress, and not having mental peace?”

Avi: “Consider that you have an option of choosing between a 20L job (which sucks big time) and a 12L one (which you really like), which one will you take up?”

Ravi: “20 lakh job”.

I was like, “You are not at all happy in the process of earning money, yet you still want to take up the job?” He was still adamant about taking that job.

Rahul and I were the ones supporting that happiness is in doing the process, not in the result. That is, if it is true that one is not at all happy doing the work, then how can he/she be happy? But Ravi and Daruru also had their point that they are more happy from the result. Whatever happens to them, they don’t care, but they see happiness in the happiness of others. Well, considering that we argued for around 6 hours on the same issue, finally we came to a decision that both process and result are equally important for happiness. It is how one balances them. This was a pretty old discussion, so I couldn’t actually remember how this discussion took place for 6 hours. (Arguments between two opposite thoughts can take any number of hours). Ultimately, people agreed to each other’s thoughts and respected them.

After this, I came to know everyone has their own point of view of happiness. But one thing is for sure: happiness is what you really feel from inside. If you try to fake it from outside, there is no point. You can fake it with your friends, but you cannot fake it with yourself. If one cannot achieve something after lots of hard work, one should be happy that he/she at least tried hard and that it wasn’t meant to be. Happiness is what one considers in every possible thing. For example: If there is a breakup of a couple, there is no point in being unhappy. Rather, one can think what has happened has happened for good (their ideas are not matching and probably they cannot get along) and live their lives happily. Life is really short; live happily forever.

Well, I am a kind of person who can be happy with what I have and what I achieve. What kind of person are you?