It would be a highly subjective answer when it comes to defining happiness and suggesting ways to achieve it. However, few would disagree that the contemporary ‘machine culture’ has made the life of most of the people similar and has thus brought with it some shared set of problems warranting common solutions too.
‘Happiness’ has been one of the greatest enigmas of human life with philosophers of every age and religion claiming to have found the formula for eternal bliss. Devotees search it in God, the materialistic in wealth; philanthropists in charity, young find it in love and children in play. Every person seems to have his own definition of happiness and every person seems to be in constant search for it. The near universal elusiveness of happiness is what makes it difficult to be summed up in a few words; or this is what we love to believe because we have never thought beyond happiness.
If we accept that we are perfectly happy, what next? Curiously, we need to cling to some sort of sorrow to carry on in life, to have a ‘target’ of happiness.
Although difficult as it may seem, happiness is more easily found than one could imagine. One only needs to have the right perspective to find joy in life’s small achievements. The foremost condition is to ‘accept’ that one is happy. Sometimes much is lost in the chase for the so-called ultimate bliss. Moreover even psychologists agree that charity and engagement in art brings happiness. Both these things are the best outlets for any negative emotion too. Striking a balance between work, leisure and social obligations is one more method of achieving happiness.
Whether or not we find a one-line definer of happiness we still can discover a lot of it all around us and we do not in fact need the moon to acquire it.