What is Happiness? Do you consider yourself a happy person? Are you always happy?

Deepti Kolte

Pune, 12th September 2023: The world happiness report of this year, put India at rank 126th out of 137, even behind countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh! Although an improvement from the last one, it is still an abysmal rank. And quite understandably it did spark disagreements and debates questioning the methodology used for this ranking. This year, the report measured happiness based on trust, benevolence, state efficiency, altruistic behaviour, and the impact of social media.

Such surveys aside, what happiness means to an individual can vary. The Oxford English dictionary definition of happiness defines it as the state of feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. While, Etymonline, traces the origin of the word happy to being lucky.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the eminent Hungarian psychologist has contributed pioneering work to our understanding of happiness. In his popular TED talk, he speaks about how increase in material well-being or material resources does not seem to affect people’s happiness although the lack of such resources causes unhappiness. In his book titled Flow, Csikszentmihalyi talks about how happiness does not depend on outside events but on how we interpret them and people who learn to control their inner experience will be able to find the quality of their lives which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.

Interestingly, although there is a role of genes, research has suggested that 40% of people’s happiness comes from the choices they make.

The main finding of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest study on human happiness (which began in 1938 and is still ongoing), is that good relationships are the key to happiness and health. The quality of relationships matters more than the quantity.

So, let’s look at what can we try and do for enhancing our happiness and consequently mental health as well – Work on building and nurturing strong connections. Your spouse, family, friends, and social circles and such close relationships are important. If you need to, work on ways to broaden your social life; volunteering for a cause you believe in, engaging with like minded people via participating in group activities that interest you are some good ways to do that.

Think back and reflect on what activities make you happy or you use to enjoy in your childhood and younger days. You can restart those, maybe in a whole new way this time. And exploring and figuring out new activities and interest is always an option.

Self-care is important. Prioritizing self-care is equivalent is to prioritizing happiness. It supports your mental health as well as physical fitness.

In the words of Ruskin Bond, ‘Happiness is a mysterious thing to be found somewhere between too little and too much’.

Whenever some of our needs are met, temporarily, don’t we start wishing for more? Can we cultivate the ability to seek enjoyment from everything we do in the moment? Find your balance; you have the power to find and work towards your own happiness.

(Deepti Kolte is a mental health advocate and Lay counselor, published poet, and marketing professional in startup environments.)