Happiness, evokes so many emotions of depth and desire at the same time. The end goal of all emotional adventures is seemingly the idea of achieving happiness – the ultimate bliss. Desire, Longing, Obsession, Love, Peace all seems to be a path followed so that it leads to a climax called Happiness. Happiness is this constant oasis that remains an elusive accomplishment. And therein lies the problem in understanding what is Happiness. It is possibly the most desired and yet most misunderstood feeling. 

Happiness, like water, takes a shape of it’s holder. A conversation with no words, is sometimes a lot more happier than the one with hours of talk-time. And sometimes the hours of conversations seem like a minute that just passed before you realized. At times we remember the one happy moment experienced a decade ago, a lot more clearer than what we ate last night. Even though they both are registered in the same place, yet our mind knows what it wants to store. Happiness can be that one look, a familiar song, the smell of first rains, a soothing massage, an unforgettable travel, a lifetime of love, a validation of what we believed in, a sound of waves or that moment we felt alive.

Sometimes Happiness happens when we least expected it and it remains with us for a lifetime; Sometime it takes years of efforts to achieve that one moment of happiness. Is happiness always an elusive fruit that needs to be chased or achieved; or a friend that walks past us while we are busy passing milestones in its pursuit. 

While Happiness comes in several shapes and forms, there is an underlying truth which is common to all. The river that runs deep to water every plant of happiness ever grown. A truth, as clear as day and night, that is often less understood while one is in pursuit of Happiness. The fact that Happiness is the along the journey, not at the end of it. Achieving a goal is the end of the happiness, not the beginning. Happiness is each day waking up and inching towards that elusive goal. The day one achieves the goal, is the day when the Happiness ends and Success takes over. Happiness is transient, not stationery. Happiness is in the flow, not in the inertia of having arrived. Happiness is during the conversation, not at the end of it. Happiness is a road, not a destination. The path of peace and love, does not lead to Happiness. In fact, being happy leads to peace and love. 

Happiness is within. Chasing something externally that must grow within you, can be a very tiring affair. One only ends up opening empty jars with a momentary illusion of excitement when the happiness is sought outside. How one sees things externally is either a reflection of what lies within, or an effort to escape it – and its important to understand the difference. If you see cheer all around you, it is possible its because you are Happy within. It can also be an effort to run from all the noise inside. It’s important to understand who you are and be reconciled with it. You are at the center of your own being. When the core is not aligned with where it wants to be, there is an imbalance that manifests itself externally, in many ways. The feeling of rebelling with the status quo and a desire to escape into a fantasy world created by the mind to provide a temporary shelter for a wandering soul, are just some of the many ways one experiences the lack of happiness. It feels like a vacuum, heavy and full of inertia. While the need of the hour is to look deep within to fix the core, and put it back in a place where it belongs, we often spend time treating the symptoms and seek an external stimuli to resolve what is unsettling within. Playing this hide & seek with an external stimulus is sometime a momentary affair, but if not checked, it can last a lifetime.  

So next time when you feel like you are in pursuit of happiness and one day you shall get there, know that this pursuit is the Happiness itself. There is nothing beyond. Enjoy the pursuit and every bit of it, cause you deserve it. You owe it to your beautiful self the feeling of being Happy. Feed your soul with Happiness, it thrives on it. Not every smile reflects the Happiness within, but every Happiness is always punctuated with a beautiful smile.

Keep your smile, Happy … Very Happy.