On happiness

The feelings of joy, contentment and pleasure is what we call happiness. It is often reflected on the countenance or in the voice of a person. Where there is no happiness there is often sadness. This too can be reflected in the face or voice of a person.

Most people would like to live a happy life but they do things that make them unhappy.

This is the reason hardly anyone is in a state of happiness all the time. A happy person is not necessarily one who never experiences sadness, but whose encounter with happy situations outweighs situations which cause him sadness.

Happiness originates from within a person mind and from outside. Some philosophers and psychologists say a person is as happy or sad as he wishes to be.

Not that he desires sadness, of course not, what they mean is that it is the way you react to a situation that makes some people extremely sad, others shrug off their shoulders, start looking for another.

It is said time is a herb that heals the wound that we feel as we go along with life. But with some the healing takes longer.

The following has been identified as factors which affect a person’s state of feeling:

Family relationship: The kind of relationship you have in the family will make you happy or sad. I was often wondering why pictures of Abraham Lincoln, the great and famous president of the United States (1861- 65), show him as a man unlike those of George Washington or Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin.

Were his photographs taken during the civil war when his mind was heavily weighted with thoughts about maintaining the unity of his country?

Perhaps that was one of the factors. But Dale Carnegie, known for books like ‘How to win friends and influence people and how to stop worrying and start living’, tells us in his less famous book ‘Little known facts about well known people’ that Lincoln’s wife was jealous and violent, she could attack him in front of people.

Spouses that are incompatible are unhappy. For them home is not sweet. This is the reason girls and boys who have fallen in love on sight should not proceed to marry before examining factors that contribute to a happy family.

Happily married people bring up happy children; unhappy homes bring up unhappy children. Some such children grow up still miserable the rest of their lives. Not that this is always a disadvantage, some make lemonade out of lemons.

The French novelist and biographer Andrea Maurois tells us in his book ‘The Art of Writing’ that some of the greatest writers had unhappy childhoods. He gives examples of Charles Dickens and Lord Byron. Others were Leo Tolstoy, George Eliot, Alan Paton and Winston Churchill.

Work: This is the source of happiness to a person who is doing what he loves doing, gets the promotions and earns enough money to meet his modest needs. Find a job that gives you pleasure and challenges you will be a happy person.

Because such jobs are not always available most people take up whatever jobs are at hand even those in which they are square pegs in round holes. The result is that they seldom perform well and are often unhappy. Such authorities on motivation as Napoleon Hill say that people are lazy only when they are doing jobs for which they have neither interest nor aptitude.

If you derive happiness from a job how can you get bored doing it.

Financial situation: It is said money cannot buy you happiness. Indeed there is no evidence that the richer you become the happier you also become. We have known cases where a couple was living contentedly on a moderate salary then the husband obtains a high income job he discards his wife for a younger one.

J. Paul Getty, who was the richest American until the year 1976 when he died, said in his autobiographical writings that he married five times and all his marriages ended in divorce because he had more time for his business than his wives.

On the other hand Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, married only once and had only one child. He lived happily with his wife until death parted them.

This gives credence to maxim that it is not money that deprives people of happiness but lust for it, as well as the wrong way of spending it.

Where you have no money, as George Bernard Shaw observed, you have hunger, disease and homelessness. These are conditions for unhappiness and insecurity.

Health: This is a factor of happiness. If you are in poor health other things fail to give you joy. Happiness itself contributes to health. A person who is often worried loses his health sometimes commits suicide.

Government: A good government lays conditions for individuals and collective happiness where there are bad government civil wars erupt, fear grip people, there is bloodshed — happiness vanishes.