Riddled with unhappiness
Information is key, knowledge is key, hard work is key, perseverance is key—all lead to success but what about happiness? Let's take a sigh and start. Unhappiness is a part of our lives. It happens, period. But are we focusing on that too much? Is it true we are losing our enthusiasm to live? If this isn't a catastrophe, then what is.
Aristotle referred to happiness as the summam bonum—the supreme good. According to Aristotle, happiness is the purpose of life, and once attained, everything else becomes less important. Nowadays, happiness is being associated with the term "subjective well-being" which is the combination of pleasantness, unpleasantness and life satisfaction. So, there's no rainbow without the rain. Life will have its peaks and valleys.
The well-renowned American psychologist Martin EP Seligman (2002) suggested a trio of hedonism, active engagement and good spirit (eudaimonia) which may lead us to the key of happiness. Here, hedonism connotes the immediate gratification where maximising pleasure is the focal point, active engagement connotes the state of working where the subject momentarily seizes to be a social actor, concentrating on the work itself and lastly, eudaimonia (eudemonism), according to Aristotle, connotes that humans should identify and cultivate their good traits and live in peace with the very personal truer self. Therefore, all comes to down to a simple yet hard-to-codify equation to happiness.
Trust is considered to be one of the secret ingredients to happiness and many nations are lagging behind in generating trust among its people. "Trust capital" is rare these days and the absence of trust is leading to anxiety, stress and desolation.
Moreover, Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory (1943) signified the top-notched level of "self-actualisation". Everyone seems to want to be their happier self. They run toward achieving dreams. If cherished dreams are achieved, they move on to the next one as quickly as possible. People seem to forget about being the happier self without having something tangible or intangible. Consummating the previous four levels of needs theory: physiological, safety, belongingness-love and self-esteem; lead to the self-actualisation stage, where men try to identify the true meaning of life; the spiritual goodness outweighs the material ownership. Dedicating oneself to good deeds for others in society can only lead to greater peace among mankind.
Can happiness be scaled? There have been quite a few measurement scales for that. These scales help manifest a framework. There are Gross National Happiness (GNH) devised by Bhutan which measures the general wellbeing of populations. Subjective well-being has always been the cynosure of academicians and practitioners alike. Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (2002) which was devised from Oxford Happiness Inventory (1989) had more or less 29 questions to evaluate subjective well-being. The 29 items were developed around themes like self-esteem, sense of control, social commitment, physical exercise and efficacy. Park and Peterson (2004, 2006) showed a positive relationship between five traits "love, gratitude, hope, zest and curiosity" with subjective well-being. In another study, Peterson (2008) hinted on the strong correlation between robustness of character and subjective well-being.
The World Happiness Index report by UN measures the nation's happiness on six crucial variables of subjective well-being: trust, freedom, income, life expectancy, social support and generosity. Finland, Denmark, New Zealand have always been toppers in regards to trust capital, kindness, standard of living, sovereignty, altruism variables thus progressing toward the future with general well-being. Trust is considered to be one of the secret ingredients to happiness and many nations are lagging behind in generating trust among its people. "Trust capital" is rare these days and the absence of trust is leading to anxiety and stress thus desolation. Generosity is another secret ingredient to be happy. It has been proved, both subjectively and objectively, that kindness and altruism i.e. selfless good deeds for others elevate brain activities, reduce stress and help achieve inner peace. Surely, doing good begets feeling good.
Yes, there will be endless failures and heartaches and blunders in life but even then, we should pat ourselves in the back for learning a lesson. Because these are the opportunities/lessons in disguise. If wired positively, our brains will be habituated in doing good things nonetheless.
Therefore, we should stop worrying mindlessly over every little thing and reach out to others. There'll be danger in every step of life but fearing those obstacles and thus being miserable will be even more frustrating. We need to be human again. Let's practice by doing small things. Exchanging kind smiles, reaching out to others, sharing food, helping out the needy, helping parents with their chores, picking up the trash, enjoying the sun, rain, snow instead of complaining about the weather, reading books, spending real time with friends, shouldering responsibilities, voicing against immoral acts, enjoying life and love, loving thyself and others as fully as possible. After all, life is just the summation of every day choices. The equation is somehow simple.
We will come to the point of our endless sleep/death, why not with contentment. In Mario Puzo's book The Godfather, the long-time secretary requested the Godfather to halt his death, he was scared of dying and he pleaded Vito Corleone to make death go away as he knew how sinful he had been. It'd be most unfortunate if we think like that at the most significant time before we die. We must be able to smile inwardly, knowing we are at the end point and we have done good. We have been so happy with so much less during childhood so why not now. Lets' be happy for all the joy and pain that's making us have our telenovela moments real time and lets' be happy for the smallest things. Let's be kind and forgiving to each other unconditionally and make a terrifying impact on everything, be it not for anyone but for ourselves.
Shahrin Ashraf is a lecturer at Bangladesh University of Professionals.
Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals.
To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.
Comments