Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Are you Happiness enabled?

Happiness, for most of us, is very conditional. We can only be happy if a given set of circumstances exist. These circumstances are usually outside of us. We cannot or can only in a very limited sense, control things which are not within us. Even our bodies and thoughts are rarely in our control, for that matter, but at least, they are "ours" for what that is worth and we have a kind of ownership of our body and thoughts.
To mess with the rest is to invite pain and suffering, usually. Sometimes, we assume that we have "mastered" the external world thanks to our bank balance or charismatic personality. That is mostly utter nonsense or is true to the extent that we have been able to bend our vision and that of others who perceive us. For the most part, we bemoan the climate, weather, traffic conditions, natural and unnatural calamities, others (near and dear or far and/or not so dear-spouses/partners, offspring, relatives, colleagues, and so on).
We would be happy if only they behaved better. If. But is that really any kind of definition of happiness? What is happiness?
Rather than define it one looks around for it: children, for the most part, seem to be happy. We can hear them emit screams of joy often. They jump and dance at the drop of a hat. We can hear the laughter of friends. We can see bliss on the face of lovers. Few people even get this far for we seem to be happiness disabled given the large doses of misery and moaning which has become a fashionable diet for society as a whole.
So how to become Happiness Enabled?
First: One has to want to be happy.
Second: One has to be happy with oneself, for oneself, and by oneself.
Third: One has to frequently click on control panel to check if it is still enabled or if someone or oneself has accidentally disabled it.