The eternal pursuit of happiness in a terminal life.

Where does true happiness actually lie? Does it lie in top grades? Or in a job offer? Or just in coming home to a loving family?

I think the answer depends on the person and what happiness is to them.

I’d always thought happiness would come in the future, after we achieve something big. But I later realized that as you achieve greatness, it becomes normal to you, and you strive for even greater aims.

One example of this would be my board exams. During the entire session, I told myself from the start that I would be the happiest if I got great grades. When my result did come, bringing grades better than I had anticipated, I wasn’t as happy as I thought I would be. I thought, “I managed these grades, but what about the future? Will I be able to maintain my record?”

It’s very hard to find contentment in water when you have had a taste of ambrosia. I realized I was happier in those little moments — heading to the park with my friends, talking nonsense with them. Those everyday things suddenly seemed more valuable to me, because they didn’t have any strings attached. Ironically, after receiving the stellar grades, my phone showed me notifications of great personalities quoting about falls after achieving greatness, as if I wasn’t insecure enough.

People are always expected to do “better”:

• “You got 90 marks? Try to get 100.”

• “You got 100? Try to maintain it.”

• “You got 99? Aww, such a shame — you got 100 last time.”

We ourselves take away our happiness by comparison, by making strings attached when clearly there aren’t any. I guess it’s human nature to seek happiness but then sabotage it ourselves when we find it.

I always ask myself, “What is happiness? How should I define it?” So naturally, I asked those around me.

For my father, happiness is when my brother and I make something of ourselves — when we are successful and happy in the future. My mother didn’t really know about her happiness, but upon deep contemplation, she said happiness would be when my brother and I are happy and successful in the future. My parents’ happiness lies in the context of their children’s future.

What about my friends? One of them told me that she will be happy when she becomes a CA. Another told me a doctor. One just said “rich and buff.”

Why do we define happiness in future-relative terms when we all have been happy in our lives at some point and we do know the feeling, yet we describe it as something we can only hope to achieve in the future? This definition keeps changing. We never stop our eternal pursuit of happiness in a terminal life.

I asked myself, “Where does my happiness lie?” When I go to Germany, I thought. But then I wondered, “Why did I define happiness as something I’ll only achieve in the future, as if I haven’t experienced it already?”

I also get happiness from lying in my bed reading novels, getting drenched in the rain, talking to the people who matter to me, looking at the sky and adoring the clouds, closing my eyes when the sun hits my face and the wind blows through my hair, and all the other little things that make up life.

We often neglect the small things that bring us happiness in our everyday lives because of our pursuit of the main aim. Only some realize that it’s the little everyday things that make life worth living. It is us who decide whether to be happy or not. If we simply change our approach to it, I think it romanticizes life.

This, of course, doesn’t apply to “one of those days.” It can be a bit much sometimes, and not every day can be a good day when all things go downhill. But I’m talking about life in general. Or maybe my approach to happiness is utopian, because I grew up in a providing family and didn’t face certain hardships.

But what I do know is that we don’t realize we are happy in the smallest things during each day, because every day we strive for greater happiness in the future — the future that keeps on flirting and then skirting out of reach once you do achieve it.

         Too often, we neglect them because we’re chasing “greater” happiness. But if we pause and notice, we see that happiness isn’t a grand destination — it’s the small spark in ordinary moments.

         So maybe happiness is like the wind — you can’t hold onto it, but you can feel it brush past you if you stay open to it. 

What does happiness mean to you?