What is the magic cure for happiness. Is it the finding of your soulmate, is it the dream job, is it helping make a change in the world. Blah and more Blah. A mind focused on achieving happiness ensures that it doesnt get any. First the desire for happiness is created, then it doesnt measure upto expectations, then frustration sets in. Life is unfair, sad bleah bleah.
What if for a moment we drop the search for elusive happiness and instead focus on what makes us alive. Maybe that can be a cathartic thing also. Right now if you vent your frustrations out in a loud defeaning scream ,you will definitely feel alive. Isnt it. What if i were to say your house is on fire, so run as fast as you can. That intense movement of the body will give u a tremendous feeling of aliveness.
Even animals are more alive than us. The sedentary lifestyle, the social conditioning has made man's activities and thinking so mediocre that he asks from other people "please tell me the secret for happiness" . Why doesnt he ever ask himself "What makes me truly alive?" . Maybe he knows the answer. Maybe he loved dancing in the childhood. But someone passed a snide remark that u cant dance well. After that he stopped dancing altogether because he wasnt good enough. The thing that made him most alive was to be abandoned simply because someone judged him unworthy of dancing. Maybe he loves cuddling . But he is too afraid to say so cuz people might think he is a wimp, has issues. So he starts thinking that since so many people are saying things it must be true and i have to enjoy life based on their expectations and boundaries.
But as he is now grown up, the man can realize that he is not tethered to a rope anymore. And why shud he care what others think. Maybe he is not a good dancer. But thats what makes him feel alive. Maybe he is not good at academics and wants to pursue his time fitness building. It makes him grounded, centered and vital. He can understand that he always had something to enjoy which made him forget what time of day it was and he has simply buried it in the past. He can dig it out and fully embrace the person he really is without any guilt or shame.
He was born a beautiful person with full potential for enjoyment but he had to forsake the potential to fit in with the society. Now as he realizes that the social formality has given him nothing but misery , he can go back to his adorable childhood self and do the things he enjoys most intensely. Maybe it is just collecting stones on beaches or chasing butterflies. Who knows. But one thing is for sure. Once he starts reliving his buried childhood, he forgets to ask others "what is the cure for happiness"
