Today morning I read something and this line jumped at me and sort of bit me awake from my morning drowsiness.

“…but happiness depends on our willingness to let go of our goals when they become unreachable.”

My first response (even in my half sleepy state) to that was:

What nonsense. Are things stacked at 5-feet level everywhere??!!

Imagine for a moment that my goal is to reach that favorite bar of chocolate so full of nuts (I like no other), in the top most shelf that is about six feet from ground level in some supermarket. Like hell are you going to convince me that my happiness lies in letting go of my goal of reaching it and making it mine, (after duly paying for it of course), simply because it is unreachable.

My second response to it (predictably so) was:

Oh really?? Says who?!

Yeah, I know. It is a typically Shail response, especially to people who don’t open their minds but instead open their mouths and let go of drivel. And the above is drivel of the purest order, methinks. Permit me to tell you why I think so and then you can tell me if I am talking drivel myself and throw a few bricks at me in the bargain.

Happiness is the state of being happy. Right??

What makes you happy; you, you and all the rest of the you-s out there??

Can you all agree on what makes you happy??

While you ponder, let me tell you of my own family of four.

One finds his happiness in tapping away all those programming codes into his computer. Another finds happiness in creating art. A third thinks drinking a hot cup of coffee all by himself in the quiet is happiness, errr…. or sitting in front of the TV to watch a favorite program. The fourth thinks music (and also that bar of nutty chocolate) is happiness.

I bet that tells you a lot.

And here is some fool trying to tell me that ‘willingness to let go of our goals’ (when they become unreachable) is what happiness depends on! I just want the person to try and come between me and my ipod. Grrr…. Within no time my unhappiness is going to make me splatter their insides all over the place, which will make them very very unhappy. Okay, I am not really that violent, but in a situation, when/if someone comes between my music and I, I certainly cannot guarantee to follow the example of the Father of the Nation and stick to ahimsa.

Anyways, getting back from thoughts of himsa: Is it correct form to tell someone what happiness is or not is?? For some it might be the willingness to let go unreachable goals. But (and that is an all-important but)  just the opposite might be true for another: trying to reach for that unreachable goal and succeeding or even dying trying to succeed might be what happiness depends on for some. What a disaster it would have been, if someone told the spider with the never-say-die spirit who inspired the King of Scotland that its goal of weaving that web, was ‘unreachable’ and hence its ‘happiness depended on letting go of that goal’?! Would it ever have felt that warm glow of a job well done if it had listened to the ‘happiness depends on letting go’ brigade??! Unless of course it was one of the brigade itself and found happiness in letting go, which I seriously doubt, since it succeeded at its seventh attempt.

For some of us happiness may be letting go, for others it may be persevering against all odds and finding success. For some it might be just staring at a flower for another building skyscrapers. Don’t let anyone define happiness for you. Find your own. Here is wishing you all to have the insight to recognize where it lies, the resolve to go after it and the good luck to find it and make it your own.

Pssst……. Those of you, whom the religious bug has bitten badly, also the spiritual ones, the culture-vultures, the pseudo philosophers and such, NO!!!!, I don’t want to be educated on what ‘true’ happiness is. If you cannot see the humor, forget it and move on.