We see so much sadness all around. There are so many ways and means to measure the overall happiness of society. Increasing psychological diseases in society are strong indicators of the increasing dissatisfaction in society. The movies and series over the OTT platforms are again reflections of the distress in societies. What has gone wrong over the years and why is there so widespread distress? In fact, during our interactions with people, we can experience that people are generally dissatisfied with their jobs, families, spouses, kids, offices, systems, and society. Everybody has one or more reasons to be unhappy.
Probably the primary reason for this unhappiness is the huge gap between expectations and reality. Expectations are formed by comparison. People compare the past, present, and future. We all compare with our past experiences. That is why as we grow old and cross the 40s, the body starts its declining journey. We keep comparing our physical strength now with our physical strength at our peak and become unhappy. We compare our present job with the past job, second kid with the first kid, new home with the old home, new locality with the previous locality, new friend with the old friend, and so on. That is the reason why people feel happy when they grow and feel sad when they fall.
We keep comparing with different people in the present moment also. Whoever exists in and around us, we keep comparing with the, We compare our salary and home with those of friends and other family members, children compare their marks with the marks of other students, the rank they get in the examinations with the rank of their competitors. We compare our packages with the packages of others. This comparison keeps going on. We again become unhappy, the moment we feel that we have something less than others.
We also compare the future. We imagine the outcome of our efforts. For example, if we get the booking at a hotel done, we look at the pictures of the hotel and imagine it to be a particular way. We reach the place and compare it with our imaginations. We have similar images of our job, friends, spouses, homes, and everything for which we make efforts and once we get the same, we compare the actual with the imagination we had. Generally, imagination is exaggerated and that is why in most cases, such comparisons bring unhappiness.
Thus, expectations created due to the comparison with the past, present, and future bring unhappiness. We need to examine what these expectations are doing to us. Basically, all these expectations have the same fundamental nature. We expect certain pleasure. Since all the pleasures represent different sensations in the body, we form expectations of certain sensations in our body. Thus, we are seeking the rewards of our actions in terms of sensations. We compare with our past, present, and future and form expectations of these rewards in terms of different sensations.
Basically, we get fixated on certain sensations and keep seeking repeatedly the same by forming expectations around them. As an outcome, we lose awareness of the joy that we get out of the action. That is the fundamental reason behind our unhappiness. If we become aware of the joy of studies, it does not matter what rank we get. In fact, we will automatically get joy when we are not fixated on the rank and the entire attention is in the process of study. Similarly, when we do not get fixated on promotions and pay packages, and become fully aware of the joy of the work at hand, we automatically get the promotions and better pay. The moment we become aware of the joy of the process, outcomes become just a byproduct. They do not matter much. Our expectations drop and our complete attention comes to the process. When we start enjoying the process, every moment is full of joy. Logically also, most of our time is spent in the process, and the outcome is momentary. For a few moments of joy (even if we presume that we get the desired outcomes), it does not make sense to forego the joy of the entire process. It's like watching a movie just for the climax, playing a game just for winning.
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