In the Pursuit of Happiness !!!

In the Pursuit of Happiness, One of my friend recently joined 15 days program in Igatpuri (Nashik, Maharashtra) by paying 50k. When i checked with him, he told me that this program is all about “How to be Happy in Life”. I laughed and told him that you are paying 50k & wasting 15 precious days of life just to know “How to be Happy in Life”, I can explain you in 5 mins the mantra for Happiness. It reminded me of short story which i read 5 years back in one of magazine.

Once upon a time there was a King, He ruled a vast kingdom and had all the Luxuries of the life but he was not happy. One day he was taking a morning walk in his garden and he saw Gardener. Gardener was singing a song and was very happy. The king stopped and asked gardener “Are u happy?”. Gardner replied “Yes Majesty, am very happy with life & i don’t have any stress in life”.

After returning back from walk, king called his adviser and asked him how come a small time gardener is happy whereas i am the King with all the luxuries but am still not happy. Adviser told King that Gardener is happy becoz he has not joined “Club 99”. King got confused and asked him what is this “Club 99”, Adviser requested him not to ask any question and just give him 99 Mohars (Gold Coins) & he will give a demo to king on Club 99.

Same day night, King’s Adviser told his junior to keep 99 Mohars at the doorstep of Gardener and a slip of paper. Next day morning, Gardener saw 99 Mohars and slip of paper. On slip of paper it was written that “I am your friend and keeping 99 Mohars at your doorstep for your future. You will need 1 more Mohar so that you can have 100 Mohars for your kids good future”. For a Gardener, even earning a 1 Gold Mohar was big task.

After few days, King again went for a Morning walk and saw his Gardener, he was looking very sad and there were dark circles under his eyes. He was depressed & stressed.

King called his adviser and narrated him morning incident. Adviser explained complete incident to king that how he kept 99 Mohars in front of Gardeners House and  told King that “Gardener has joined club 99“. Adviser told  King that rather being happy about possession of 99 Mohars, Gardener is sad about 1 Mohar which he does not have i.e. he is not happy with what he has rather he is sad for what he does not have.

Moral of the story is that rather being Happy about 99 Mohars, Gardener became sad for 1 Mohar which didn’t have. In short he postponed his happiness till he earn 1 more Mohar. We always have sufficient with us to be happy but we postpone our happiness for very little, which we don’t have and this is vicious cycle.

We all are member of Club 99 including myself. Now i correlated this story with my life. When i was a kid, i used to thought that once i will pass school then i will be happy becoz college is fun. I passed school and in college the definition of happiness postponed to pass the college with good grades. I passed college with good grades but at the same time, happiness is postponed to Post Graduation. During PG, happiness was postponed to get a good Job. When i got a good job, happiness was postponed to day when i will own a house and now i own a house but i have postponed my happiness to day when i will clear my Home Loan. I am 1000% sure that i will not be happy on that day also becoz i will have another reason to postpone my happiness. In this whole ball game, i lost happiness of passing School, College, PG, getting a Job & owning a house but i am still postponing my happiness 1 step ahead.

Someone might argue that if we will not aspire in life for next step then we will not be able to succeed. I agree, its good to aspire but not at the cost of today. From above story, we can learn that today we have 99 Mohars which are sufficient and we should aspire for 100th Mohar but at the same time, today we should be happy about 99 Mohars. We should not link our happiness with the event of achieving 100th Mohar though we should keep aspiring for 100th Mohar.

Happiness is the state of Mind and it should not be linked to any targets in Life. We need not to learn from anyone on “How to be Happy”, We simply need to stop postponing Happiness one step ahead. The day we will cover this small distance of 1 step then our life will change forever. In the Pursuit of Happiness, we should not ignore the Happiness around us.

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