MSUGANA

Infinite Happiness

(Review from my BRO Birger Hennings: “Damn Marsha, you’re full of shit!” Hahaha)

The consequence of being happy is the feeling of disappointment caused by the realization that happiness does not last forever.

So the question is: Is it possible to always be happy?

I can easily conclude that one of the ultimate sources of unhappiness is the presence of strong desires in our conscious/sub-conscious minds (this is at least very true for me).  With the presence of strong desires, we force ourselves to fulfill our goals which in the end might cause a substantial amount of stress and frustration.  Of course, it is crucial that we have goals and desires to maintain some level of motivation, but often they cause too much stress.

In the words of Buddha himself, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.”  

One of the main reasons why I could never be a Buddhist is because I simply am incapable of manipulating my mind or thoughts to stop wanting WAY too many things.  Too many dreams, too many goals, and not enough room to maintain my level of happiness due to my constantly fluctuating emotional state (my favorite oxymoron).  Buddhist monks, however, supposedly have the ability to have 0 wants and desires. In Buddhism, as I learned directly from the Dalai Lama from his lecture in Atlanta, it is believed that having strong desires is an unwanted trait.  This is why Buddhist monks are trained to be content with what they have and what they don’t have.  But how could I possibly be like them?  Should I go to some cave in the middle of nowhere Nepal?  Is that really the KEY to true happiness?

My new year’s resolution for 2011 was to “constantly be happy and thankful.”  It’s been ‘quite’ successful -I am an a lot happier person than I was ever before- yet the key word here, ‘constantly,’ was an unnecessary addition to the resolution.  I’m sure there’s some sort of art form out there to maintain your level of happiness, or perhaps, even increase it day by the day….But then I realize something:

There is no happiness without sadness.  Your level of appreciation of simple things exponentially increases after experiencing some sort of ‘sadness’ in your life.  Simple examples: Food tastes better when you’re hungry; breathing suddenly feels satisfying after being under water for too long; and being with your family feels more emotionally fulfilling after not seeing them for a long period of time. (The economics term: Diminishing marginal utility!)

And that is exactly why I do believe that ‘infinite happiness’ is impossible to attain; you need to experience the downward slope of the ‘happiness cycle’ in order to fully appreciate the top of the curve.  And that is also why SADNESS (surprisingly enough) is something that we all should be thankful for; we’d just be a hike away from reaching a happier state of mind.  All you need is the power to climb to the top.