How to be Happy




A reader called me yesterday; she’s a relative but more a friend. She asked, ‘Nasir, how can one be happy?’

I replied, ‘The very fact that you are asking me this question is that you aren’t.’

She said, ‘Yes. I am not happy. But I want to be.’

This lady is married, has children, is well-off, looks good, drives her own car, is educated, wears clothes of the latest fashion, attends all functions and gatherings, laughs a lot, reads heavy stuff, has travelled to several countries, and is religious too. There is no rift between her and her husband. They complement each other well. I know the husband also, so I know.

Yet, she claims, she is unhappy. She says there is something missing in her life due to which she is unable to experience true happiness.

You see, despite having everything, she is still missing something. And therein lies the problem.

Her whole concentration is not on what she has but on what she doesn’t. She is unable to lead a fulfilled life because she is focussing on where she shouldn’t. Fulfilment is the secret of happiness.

I asked her what she was missing.

She said she can’t exactly say what - but though she drives a Lexus, she wants a Range Rover and though she has branded handbags, she wants Hermes, and so on and so forth.

I told her that there is no end to this want. She’ll have to learn to control this feeling, without which she can never hope to be happy. Happiness is in enjoying what one has.

She said, ‘Assuming that what you are saying is correct. Happiness is in enjoying what one has.  What if…?’ She seemed lost for a while and then said, ‘I don’t know how to put it.’

I encouraged her to speak her mind. ‘Unless you speak out, I won’t be able to assist.’

She said, ‘What if someone does not have a child? How can that couple be happy? Then how what you are saying will apply to them? Because, according to you, happiness is in enjoying what one has. This couple does not have a child.’

‘What has this question got to do with why you aren’t happy?’ I asked.

‘I understood your logic,’ she said. ‘I am taking your logic to the next level. Does the concept of happiness is in enjoying what one has apply to a childless couple also? Is what you are proposing, a universal solution?’

I said, ‘You are missing the point. Just repeat what I said about happiness.’

‘Happiness is in enjoying what one has,’ she said.

‘What one has,’ I repeated.  ‘The childless couple do not have a child. So, if they focus on what they do not have, they can’t be happy.’

‘Then what should they do to be happy?’ she asked.

‘They should focus on what they have,’ I said.

She took a deep breath and said, ‘It is easy to say all this when one is not experiencing such a thing. What if you didn’t have a child? Would you be happy then?’

‘That depends on how I would have taken it. But it wouldn’t have changed reality, which is that happiness is in enjoying what one has.’

-          NZ

28.7.2019


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