The Happiness Equation

If you are satisfied with your situation at any stage of your life then you are a happy man. This is my definition of happiness.

To understand the idea of happiness, I wish to write my understanding of unhappiness. Nowadays, unhappiness or depression is a disease because it kills people slowly and silently. Although we have made advancements in technological and medical fields, the mental and spiritual areas are empty to a great extent. And it’s a bit tragic to see that no one is taking the required steps to neutralize or even minimize this threat.

The good thing about unhappiness is it's not permanent and only a temporary state of mind that is remediable at any stage of life with some changes in behaviors and the train of thoughts and the prime focus of my write-up is about those changes.

There are two types of factors that are responsible to make you feel happy or unhappy and those are external and internal factors.  

According to my pathetic observation and finite knowledge, there are well-connected events in your life that altogether make you happy or unhappy. Let’s write these events in the form of an equation to understand this in a better way.

So, it all starts with a company. As we all know, “A man is known by the company he keeps.” The company gradually makes your habits. As a writer says, “Habits are learned, choose them wisely.”  These habits, on the whole, construct your thoughts that can be good or bad. Then these thoughts fabricate your thinking process and, believe me, you’re thinking and thought streams make you feel cheerful or gloomy.

 So if you want to live a happy life or want to be happy then you need to start from the beginning with the help of self-analysis. So, the company does matter a lot in this case, choose it wisely. Also, a motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said that, “We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.” 

 These are all internal or inner factors that can make you happy or sad.

Now, I would like to draw your attention towards external factors which are many in number but I am going to discuss some of them.

Nowadays you tend to open your hearts and discuss your matters, minor to major, with your friends. In some cases, you rely more on friends than your blood relations. It is only good to some extent and there isn’t any harm in doing that but the problem is you have to be careful while choosing your friends.

“Choose your friends wisely. Association is perception. Perception is reality.”

Your friends can make or break you.

Association with “someone special” is also significant to make us feel untroubled or melancholic in almost all ways. I can’t explain the damage which this very important decision and a person can make and if you are at the wrong place or a wrong person, who isn’t of your type, is in your life then I can only pray for you. This one person can change your views about life, people, society, relationship, and even intimacy. So, don’t put all your eggs in the same basket or if you want to do this then do it carefully and try to judge the person properly as it is the need of the hour (entirely based on personal experience). There are many other factors like society, environment, current situation and the like which are responsible in this regard but these are, for me, the most crucial.  

To cut long story short you should follow this maxim from an anonymous author to lead a balanced life:  

“You are the books you read, the movies you watch, the music you listen to, the people you spend time with, the conversations you engage in. Choose wisely what you feed your mind.”

Posted: 05 Apr 2021

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ShawK

Joined in Mar 2021

Humanist, freelancer, content writer, literary bird & learner. I'm passionate about freelance content writing and trying to improve it with every passing day.