Be Your Fountainhead

 

We, as a society, have this malaise of depicting happiness as something that one 'achieves'. According to us, happiness is when one excels in academics, when one achieves material success, when one finds a companion or begets offspring, gets to be a celebrity or successful in any stream of life. Our culture, media, even the very way of our lives, portray the achievers, celebrities and the rich as content and happy.

But happiness that depends on all these is not happiness but mere satisfaction that depends on base criteria. The real happiness wells up from within. Just like that of a baby. A baby does not need any price tag on its toys to become happy. A baby plays with a pricey fur toy with the same enthusiasm as it exhibits when it finds a broken twig.

So, let's all learn to be as happy with nothing as we are with everything. There have been people who amassed abundant material wealth, acquired all titles of honour and gathered as many swank gadgets as they could and yet died in a penurious state of mind. I have otherwise seen poor people in ragged clothes go to sleep with nothing but their arms for pillows and a song on their lips.

So, be happy. Stay happy. With everything. Without anything. With everyone. Without anyone. May the stream of happiness finds its fountainhead within your own beautiful selves!