Happiness cannot be pursued. It is
who you are.
A common and grave misconception occurs
when we mix up the definitions of happiness and success. Success is getting
what you want __ a college degree, a car, a new apartment, an overseas job, a
billion dollar fortune, whatever! But you may not always get what you want in
Life. Happiness, therefore, is wanting what you get! Despite all your hard
work, you may not graduate. You may not get the car of your choice. Or get an
apartment in the neighborhood that your preferred. Or someone else may get the
lucrative job that you wanted! Or a quirk of circumstance may deny you the
fortune. The ability to be happy despite not getting what you want and despite
your circumstance is true happiness. And that ability is resident in each of
us: in you, in me, in everyone!
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| Nisha Kapashi: in 2011 (left) and now (right) Photo Courtesy: ScoopWhoop/Internet |
I read a story on ScoopWhoop this morning that interested me. It was the story of
Jain nun Nisha Kapashi. She is of Indian origin but was born in the US. She
grew up with all the luxury in the world – among Gucci clothes and Fendi handbags;
she lived in a lavishly furnished single bedroom apartments on Sixth and 34th,
near Macys, in New York. But while she was living a “fashionable and successful
Life”, she was feeling an “emptiness” that made her very, very unhappy. She dug
deeper into the Jain way of Life and found great value in the teachings of
Mahavira. She quit her job with J Crew, moved to India and signed up to be a
nun. She told ScoopWhoop’s Samarpita
Das: “We sleep for six hours a night, meditate for 90 minutes a day, and we
study Jain philosophy for 15 hours a day. We live a nomadic existence in India.
I have no possessions. I have nothing, but I’ve never been so happy. I have no
money, not even a bank account. I have committed to a Life of celibacy and
simplicity for the rest of my Life. This is my Life now — and it’s the
ultimate happiness.”
I am not exactly one who believes that we
must practice celibacy and abstinence to experience happiness. But what Nisha’s
story does reiterate is that each of us has this awesome opportunity to be
happy! By simply being who we are comfortable being!
If everyone followed Nisha’s example of
setting out to be who they love being, the world will be full of happy people –
instantaneously! In fact, all of us are intrinsically happy folks. We become
unhappy only when we allow our circumstances to suppress our happiness! Let’s
say you are walking on the pavement on a rainy day, whistling ‘Raindrops are
falling on my head….’, and an insensitive motorist splashes a dirty puddle of
water on your work clothes. You stop whistling. And now you are angry. Does
being angry mean that you have ceased to have the ability to be happy? Not at
all. Your attention has shifted from whistling the memorable tune to hurling
abuses at and showing a finger to that motorist. The moment you bring your
attention to being happy – despite the soiled clothes, you can still whistle
the tune and keep walking, can’t you? – you will find your anger disappearing.
We feel miserable when we are unhappy only
because being angry or being anything negative is not normal, it is not human
nature. Think about it. Don’t you always feel miserable when you have been sad
or jealous or angry or guilty? But have you ever, ever, felt miserable when
feeling happy? I rest my case. So, you don’t have to work hard at being happy. You are happiness. Just stop being anything else and please go
back to being happy!
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