Success, happiness, and your life!

(Disclaimer: I am not the absolute truth neither have the absolute wisdom – you may agree or disagree to the following post. Opinion is based on general observation and study on people’s life).

Do you think there’s a link between success and happiness? Happiness is an inner feeling or mental state that’s mostly controlled by hormones like serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin. These hormones help promoting happiness and pleasure while reducing depression and anxiety. Therefore, happiness is linked to physiological conditions of your health. The bigger question is what controls your physiological conditions? There are several factors that influence your mind that actually decides your physiological conditions. That’s the reason doctors also advise you to be happy when you are ill so that you recover fast from the illness. If you have a strong will power that ultimately sends positive signals to all of your vital cells when you have a sound mind. That’s why most of the famous personalities promote only the positive vibes. Remember, how it percolates down to the cellular level is yet to be understood completely by scientific research.

Next- what’s the definition of success? The literary meaning of the word ‘success’ is ‘the state when you have achieved what you wanted, doing well and becoming famous, rich, etc. etc. It’s evident that there can’t be set parameters that decide 'absolute success' because definition of success is different for a financially strong and a financially weak person. Perhaps, that’s the reason a rich person may not be happy in life though having all luxury items while a financially weak person can be very happy in life. It does depend on individual's perception of life because a saint lives happily without a life-partner while the success of a married individual depends on the family bonding. On the other hand, we often encounter people in our society who believe destruction is the main parameter of their success. This is the mental state when negative forces control their mind and government intervention is needed to neutralize their activities. Why and how people develop negative mind-set is often debated – it can be due to injustice meted out to a person or a group of people or an entire community or due to psychological issues. I am not going to discuss such issues. However, one of the most determining factors is the childhood experiences – if a kid is grown up under a healthy environment, then there will be a zero or lesser probability that the kid will be associated with negative forces in his/her later part of the life. That’s the reason parents should have emotionally correct bonding with their kids to shape their future, but if parents are not educated enough, they can’t play a positive role.

The other important factor that can play a vital role in person’s life is spirituality while isolating or differentiating it from the religion. The spirituality helps us to understand that nothing is permanent except the changes in nature. It realizes us about the futility of ego or the arrogance in life or even the so called ‘success’. When there’s no absolute understanding of this universe and no one can guarantee the future of it, then our achievements are just an illusion having no permanent value. However, an individual should always contribute and play a positive role in forward marching of mankind (not limited to a particular community or group of people defined by a geographical boundary). Well, it’s certain that your mind is now filled with multiple questions - the vital one is ‘how one can live a happy life then?’. A balancing act can help one to live a happy life when one controls his/her emotions. We have to remember that emotion is always good for the person standing in front of you, but doesn't necessarily the vice-versa is also always true, per se. The next question is how one could dissociate from emotions? Isn’t it even foolish to think about it? Absolutely not, the state when a person become emotionless is under two situations - one when he/she attains absolute detachment and 2nd when a person is dead. We can live a happy life when we know the balancing act - that controls our mind which ends up reflecting in our routine activities.

If we study the life story of 'successful' persons, we will find that all of them have clarity on thoughts and on their all actions (reminder: success is not absolute, the definition varies from person to person, and it's often comparative & situational). Their actions have brought changes to the lives of millions of people. One can’t be successful when you don’t have clarity on the thought and actions. There can’t be 2nd thinking on what you do but of course, you can reset or reorient your desired goals. That’s why we say – you can’t cross a river by keeping your one leg on one boat and 2nd leg on another one. That situation arises when one gives preference to his/her ‘self’ rather than on improving the life of others.

We need both a sound mind and a good physical health for the happiness. Physical exercises can improve your physical health while spirituality helps controlling your mind. No other practices other than yoga which is a combination of both can help us to achieve ‘success’ in life and happiness comes from the balancing act. One should expand the perception of life to get the answers to specific questions about 'success' and fit everything within his/her boundary of understanding. 




WR 07.10.2023
Upcoming: Nanotechnology, Quantum Dots, and Nobel prize in chemistry 2023

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