Wednesday, November 10, 2010

HappYness


Happiness is jus’ a relative understandin’ of the lil’ things in our lives.
It’s a perspective. Sometimes, overrated and sometimes underrated. Remember, what we said in the beginning- ‘RELATIVE’.
However a situation may seem to be and however bad it may look in a particular circumstance, at that very moment somethin’ may happen or appear to happen and the way you look at it can change so drastically enough that the smile reappears on those sensitive lips and a whistle takes over those musings. I’m sure it happened to all of us one time or the other, only if we had given a chance for it to happen.
I always tried to understand the most common of things by relating them to the most common of things to suit their nature- the BASIC.
Often, friends complain to each other about the other possibly good friend who remembers them only in times of need. Okay, let’s talk about that for a while.
Do you think of the bathroom, all day? I sound really funny. Don’t I? I know. It’s obvious too that we think of it only when we need to take a piss. But what if the bathroom feels about you the way you thought of your other friend. It may sound indifferent, but it’s not. Jus’ try to reason it with me. You remember it when you need it and go for it. The only reason I see the bathroom to feel disappointed is when you go to your neighbor’s bathroom for the piss. I hope you are getting the drift.
There is this awesome example I came across in a TED talk on a context of choice and happiness. There are many circumstances when we feel something does really make us happy but in fact, it does not. Here’s one such situation.
A group of 40 Harvard students were sent around to click pictures of their campus, these were to be the ones they can hold close to the heart years later to relish college memories. Two pictures were to be selected from each of these individual collections. Now, the group was divided in to two. The first group was asked to choose the best picture of the two and asked to go home with it with no choice. However, the second group got 1 picture alone though they could come back 3 days from that day and switch it with the other if they feel they are not satisfied with the one they had.
Guess, what happened! More than half of group 2 exchanged their pictures on the 3rd day as expected. When stats were taken a few months from then to see how many were happy with the decision made; surprisingly, the most of the members of group 1 said- ‘ well, this is the one’ while most of the group 2 said-‘hmmm. . .I ‘m not really sure you know, I still love the other picture more.’
I don’t know to call it compromise or whatever but it does seem that takin’ away decision did make them happy, at least here!
As days pass by and time flies; each day when you lay in bed at the end of the day, though these seem so obvious, and you don’t have anyone to talk to about these and so does many of those times, you feel, like me, wondering, what is the missin’ link!?