In Pursuit Of Happiness

Picture: Outlook India 

I am usually a happy and upbeat person, but last week after reading some contrived and shoddy articles in Outlook magazine’s Happiness Edition, I became highly miserable and fell into a dark well of “critically deep dukh and taynsion.”

To lift up my spirits, I turned the pages of the latest issue of the Time magazine. As if as a sign from Ma Unicorn, the first thing I read was, “10 Questions for Daniel Kahneman,” an interview with the psychologist and Nobel Prize winning economist.

Towards the end, he is asked if his research had changed the way he lives. Being a psychologist, he gives a long-winded, convoluted answer, which essentially means that happiness “depends on how much time you spend with people you like.”

Taking the cue from Heavens, I made a list of people I liked. It turned out that many of them lived in other cities and far-off countries. I put their names in a separate list for future references. If I ever visited their cities, I would definitely give them opportunity to host me and make me happy.

For now, I decided to make do with the people living in my own city. I tried to contact those who were on the top of my list, but their agents and managers simply refused to put me through. I left many voice messages, Facebook messages, and also tweeted to them. Only once, did I receive a reply when an agent told me that if I did not stop, I would be reported for stalking. After that, I struck off all the celebrities from my list of friends.

I thought, I should better spend my time with those friends who are approachable, people with whom I interact regularly. This exercise also turned out to be a damp squib. Some said they were busy as they already had plans. Sometimes a kid would pick up the phone, mumbling, “Hello… hello…” and then say, “Mommy says, she is not at home.”

And then there were others who would say, “My wife will kill me,” or “My wife will burn me alive.” It is a real pity to see men living in such terror. How can you expect people to be concerned about terrorism at large, when they are busy dealing with it at the home front?

Although this idea of spending time with people I liked has flopped badly, it does not signal the end of my pursuit of happiness. I have been mulling over my past and trying to recall the small instances and big events that had made me happy so that I can recreate something similar whenever I am in low spirits. I will share these findings in my next post.