This is the 5th part in my series, The Secret to Never Ending Happiness. If you are here for the first time, please make sure to check out the part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 and then come back here. Now without further ado, let’s get into it straightaway.
The above diagram is a representation of everything that we have learnt in the first 4 blogs. The fp boxes represent the factors in life that affect the state of mind positively and the fn boxes represent the negatively affecting factors. All of these factors are different for different people. The y-axis in the diagram represents a spectrum of emotions we experience. Each factor is placed based on how it affects the state of mind in the absence of other factors. Think of all the arrows that go from the mind to the factors like the factors are pulling the mind towards the emotion they are in. The labellings wp1…wpn and wn1…wnn are the weights or kind of the force by which these factors pull the mind to their emotion. These weights are variable. All these factors are everything we have ever experienced in life. Every little and every large thing. These factors contain all our fears, all our abilities, all our success, all our failures, all our biases and everything you can possibly think of. It includes small annoying things like your barber spoiling your hairstyle, small happiness like the food being tasty, extreme happiness like becoming a parent for the first time. The diagram here is a very simplified version of what I am trying to explain and not all emotions are covered here but you get the point. Our state of mind at any point in time is determined by a weighted average of all these factors.
Let’s say it is rainy season and a speeding car passing by splashes water all over you, that creates a new factor to affect your state of mind and since it is very recent, the weight for that factor or the force by which it pulls your mind towards the angry emotion is very high, you get instantly triggered by such an event. The weight of this factor becomes very high and it kind of wins the tussle between all the positive and negative emotions in your mind and drags your mind into the angry column. So we constantly get into situations where our mind (which is a function of all the factors already present and their corresponding weights) gets a new factor (a new puller) with some weight of its own (which is generally high for recent factors). We react to the new factor (new situation) based on our previous state of mind.
Now, consider an ideal religious monk, who has left behind all worldly pleasures. What factors do they have that affect their state of mind? Money? Career? Business? Love? None of that. They have just 2 factors. God and sprituality. Both of these factors places their state of mind firmly in the ‘satisfied/content’ row in the y-axis. We are talking about an ideal monk here. But real monks are still humans, so they still do have a lot of factors, a lot less than us in quantity and their weights are pretty insignificant when we compare them to religion, God and spirituality. Which even though not being an “ideal” monk, places their state of mind firmly in the satisfied category. Do you think there is any other person who is as happy as them then? You would argue that people do stay extremely happy in some parts of life which is higher then satisfied or content. But what would you prefer? Satisfied and content all the time vs extremely happy for a very small amount of time along with all the accompanied negative emotions? You might agree to this and might not. You might think that how can someone be happy with such boring stuff. You’d think that there are so many good things to do in life, “you live only once”, etc. But you will agree to the point that they are in a really good state of mind. Although not in a way you would like, but still, that’s the kind of state of mind everyone wants to reach, not necessarily with those factors.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not telling you to become a monk yourself and leave everything. I am just telling you to learn from them. How do you bring that kind of happiness in your life? Let’s take notes from the monk model. First, a heavy weight satisfying factor. Second, less number of factors. Third, less weight to all the other factors. Now, for the first one, it is really difficult to find a single factor that can keep you satisfied always and be so heavy weight that it can overrule all the other factors like religion and spirituality for monks. Along with all of this, that factor should not do any harm to you and should always be rewarding and should never cause sadness because the weight we are giving it is very high, we cannot afford for it to drag our mind to the depressed zone. Let’s see, what could that factor be? It cannot be money, sex, career, or even small things like food, travelling, etc. This is because all of that can either lead to sadness or be dangerous at times. Could it be family, or any other kind of relationship, maybe girlfriend or boyfriend or even friends? I don’t think so because one day if we have a fight with them, we will lose our happiness. You see the point here? It is really hard to find a single factor that dictates your state of mind, the monks have found that factor which has made it really easy for them to maintain a good state of mind. So what is that factor for you? That is for you to realize really. Do I know what is that factor for me? Frankly, no. Will I ever be able to figure that out? I don’t know that too. But at least I know where to start. And I will share that with you.
You can start with the 2nd and the 3rd point. How do you reduce the factors or weights? Let’s take an example for this, you went to the barber and the barber cut your hair in a way that you don’t like. How would you react? Most of us would shout at the barber, which is pretty natural because you are angry. The next time something like that happens to you, wait a second and tell yourself, “Thik hai yaar! Ho jaata hai! Jaan bujhkar thodi kiya hai usne” (Chill out man! He hasn’t done it on purpose). Next time if some kid is shouting and you get annoyed by the constant noise, tell yourself, “He’s just a kid! Calm down man!”. Next time you eat bad tasting food, tell yourself, “Come on man! You can’t get tasty dishes all the time, you’ve get to eat this some day!” Trying to calm yourself down in such small situations will train your mind to react in that way more and more. That’s step one, eliminating small, easily removable factors. There are some factors that you cannot ignore right away, for example, jealousy or FOMO, try to reduce their weight on your mind. This won’t happen immediately, it will take some time. But with proper evaluation of your own mind, you will eventually be able to eliminate those factors or at least reduce the force by which they pull your mind, or the weight. But to eliminate those factors, you will first need to know them. Most of the people don’t even know what factors affect them. How do we get to know them? By self evaluation. No, it’s not as hard as it sounds. We just need to honestly reflect on things we think or how we react when we don’t have time to react.
So now with that we now know what is never ending happiness and if not reach there, at least start in the right direction. So that’s it for the topic ‘The Secret to Never Ending Happiness’. Hope you gained some value from it and enjoyed it. Signing off, until the next one. Thankyou!