We live in a highly complex society. Despite all the complexities of society, if we try to understand human motivation, probably, most people would agree that we all want to be happy. Human civilizations have spent infinite hours discovering and inventing different technologies, and machines, and designing different products to make our lives comfortable assuming that these comforts will give us happiness. However, can we say that we are happier than the people before the invention of washing machines, the internet, computers, and airplanes? In fact, most people would agree to the contrary. That is the case, why are we then inventing the machines and technologies to make us unhappy?
We have tried different models to run the societies such as democracy, bureaucracy, socialism, communism, and many other models to make people happy. However, we find that almost all these models have failed to deliver happiness to the masses. Have we ever examined the fundamental reason why human beings are so unhappy?
We see infants and young kids across the communities born in quite different circumstances. Can we say that the kids born in rich families with a lot of comforts are happier than the kids born in poor families lacking the resources? Definitely not. Kids just like to play. If they do not have the resources, they play with the nature. They make the best use of whatever they have. I remember we used to play with the old cycle tires that were available for free. We used to play with the empty matchboxes and trees. We just need a few friends and an old ball and a bat to play the whole day long. Even if that is not there, we can play with a ball and a few stones. Even if that is not there, we can just play with the ball. Even if the ball is not there, we can play I Spy. Why were we so happy despite the deficiency of resources in our childhood? It was because we were not fixated on a particular type of game. We just wanted to explore and play.
Can we see the problem with the people now? As we grow up, we get fixated on the games. We feel that a particular career, restaurant, life partner, friend, position, travel, etc will make us happy. The reality is quite different. The body and the mind are just tools to allow us to explore. For example, a software designer needs a laptop to design. He may get happiness by designing on a quite old laptop, while he may not get the same happiness designing on a brand new powerful laptop. He may buy the best quality laptop, download the best designing software, and get the best anti-virus installed, and yet till he designs quality products, he is not going to be happy. Our body and mind are just tools like the laptop. We may try to make them comfortable and safe with the most expensive products available in the market, but happiness lies in the best use of them to explore this world. Happiness lies in the process and not the outcome. The designer would be happy designing. If he stops designing, after the appreciation of his designs by society, the happiness will not stay for long. If we are able to make the best use of our body and mind in the process, that gives us happiness, and not the comforts and pleasure to the body and mind.
The entire society is so unhappy because it has given undue premium to comfort. A designer can not use the laptop 24 hours a day. That needs some rest. Similarly human body too needs some rest. When we get tired, we get a sound sleep naturally. We do not need a big house in an expensive place for the same. We just need a little space. We don't need to find the most expensive table for our laptop to work. Any stable table is sufficient. Similarly, we do not need expensive interiors or decorations for our homes as we do not need to decorate our laptops for design. We need certain tools and software so as to save time for designing. Similarly, we need certain appliances at home to save time so that we may use that time on the processes. We need to put in place certain firewalls and anti-virus to save our laptops from threats. Similarly, we need to have a healthy diet and exercise to keep ourselves fit to work. An expensive laptop with the latest specifications may help us design better, but an expensive laptop without the capacity to design is just a waste. Similarly, we may need more resources to implement our ideas but resources without the ideas to put them to use are worthless. If we enjoy designing and give our best to it, resources will come sooner or later. Similarly, if we use our body and mind, enjoying whatever we do, the resources will come naturally in the process.
That is the reason why the entire society is so unhappy. Parents, out of their own ignorance, guide their kids to just accumulate the resources. They spend their entire life accumulating the resources. Like a mad designer making it a life mission to accumulate laptops and at the end of the day all the laptops dying their natural death due to obsolete technology. Unless we understand, and make our kids understand, that real happiness lies in the process of using the body and the mind to the best of their capability, we will keep presuming a false correlation between the comforts and resources; and happiness. The entire universe is expanding from a dot to a wideness. We too represent the same consciousness that is making the universe expand. Expansion is our fundamental nature. We too want to explore new things. When we try to confine our existence to this body and mind, we become suffocated and unhappy. Accumulating the most expensive cricket bats will not make us happy. It is playing cricket that makes us happy. A dam just dries the river. It is the flow of the river that makes a river happy and lively.
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