Happiness is (not) overrated

I’m not the happy ball yet.

Before we get down to philosophical debating,  I feel I should probably tell you in short what I shall be blabbering about in the near future. What I believe the topic intends to convey is that the thought that our purpose in life is to attain happiness is bullshit. And I am here to convince you its not.
Happiness isn’t over-rated. It is the main motivating force to most of human endeavour. Our whole existence is pointed at one single aim, to be happy. Happy here means a lot of things, a lot of different feelings rolled into one word. It means a state of satisfaction, and good cheer, it means a place in your life where you feel fulfilled. And that is difficult to aim for.
The ideal happy person would be confident, not in the least bit insecure, a little reckless and very motivated. One may argue that a wholly satisfied individual would no longer find it necessary to carry out a task, since he is always happy. But I refute that, happiness is like a drug. Once you taste it, you strive for it. Your whole body aches for it. When you aren’t happy you are constantly restless, on the lookout for the next fix. The ideal happy person would thus be motivated, not by the need for satisfaction, but for the need to remain happy.
I seem to have used the words happy a lot. I hope it hasn’t led you to believe that happiness is easily attainable. Because its not. Most puny individuals like us struggle in a desperate bid for it. Argue as you may, even the most masochistic person in the world feels a tinge of jealousy when another person lights up in a bright smile.
The Mahatma said that “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” You realise the truth in his words when you pause to reflect upon the little things that have ever made you happy. Like saying you’ll get a 8 pointer in your exams, and then going and getting it. Or by deciding to go for a walk everyday and then doing it. These little things make you proud of yourself, in what we perceive is a stupid way. But it isn’t. It is amazing to feel that way, everyday. The feeling that you’re doing something worthwhile, albeit only for yourself.
Popular culture has made being unhappy a romantic thing. Left and right, everywhere you see, people are desperate to prove they’re worse off than you. In colleges everybody has studied lesser than you, in their childhood everyone has had strict parents or parents that never really ‘understood’ them. Misery is the new ‘in’, its a common ground for everyone, the revel in it. They smoke endless cigarettes just to reinforce it, some jackasses make marks on their wrists to deal with it, some even take it a step further and end their lives.
People find it hard to let go of the novelty of sadness, Chuck Palahniuk (author of Flight Club) says that “It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
I leave you with this thought. Many of the great writers, the artists, the poets, the philosophers, the scientists that we’ve heard of lived in a great deal of pain, they were oppressed beyond belief, and their art, or talent was their only emotional outlet. It was the only thing that made them feel happy, that relieved the pain. If these great people struggled for that little bit of happiness, who are we to deny it? Who are we to say happiness is overrated?
–Dark Master–
7,018,109,306 people in the world are mostly unhappy. The one remaining guy is the yellow ball.

True Story.