Success and happiness

Through my younger days, I was essentially taught that success MEANT happiness. Yeah, success then was all about getting enough education credentials to get into Engineering or medicine - the only two certain means of being employed. There really was no difference between the success and happiness when put that way. I mean, when success means avoiding potential starvation, you hardly see it as different from happiness. True, there were stories about people starving in order to pursue their art or their love or whatever but they did not really seem to be singing and dancing with happiness because they were starving.

The problem is that, once you are confident that the wolf is not parked outside the door (In other words, when starvation is not a perpetual threat), the fact that you are eating does not make you actively happy. I mean, yeah, it is nice that you CAN eat, unless of course obesity is causing you to go on a diet, but you see no reason to be singing and dancing around the house because you are NOT starving either.

Such, indeed, is the problem with happiness. When you don't have it, you are unhappy about it. When you first get it, you are happy. THEN you start getting unhappy about the other things you do not have.

Success is achieving the goals that you tried to achieve. Happiness is a state of mind. Now, WHEN you achieve a goal, you feel happy about the achievement, alright. THAT state of mind does not last forever though. The mind is a funny beast, it never remains content in one state of mind. It keeps oscillating up and down all the time. So, if success is what you choose as the WAY to happiness, then you should keep setting goals and keep achieving them. An iffy proposition - somewhat like winning at a slot machine and having to KEEP winning in order to maintain that high!

Of course, the mind oscillates about a mean. Like, the man who is starving - he could get a meal every other day and feel happy but the overall average happiness he feels is bound to be lower than the man who is sure of his food. So, yes, some successes CAN push up the average happiness levels. The trick is to know whether the goals YOU set ARE the sort of goals which are pushing up your mean happiness levels OR merely spikes around the same old level.

Philosophy, of course, tells you to control the mind. Indian philosophy is all about keeping the mind 'free from the pairs of opposites' - pleasure-pain, like-dislike, comfort-discomfort, yada yada. AND, for those of you know find Indian anything not worth attention unless duly ratified by the West, dear old Rudyard Kipling also says, "...if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same...". So there! THAT way, the mind ceases oscillating and 'state of mind' is not a fickle thing any longer.

But, you see, sorrow and joy are also one of those pairs of opposites. THAT stable state of mind...you could call it peace but can you call it happiness? The religious philosophers call it Bliss OR Nirvana OR some such.

In the here-and-now of ordinary folks like you and me, for whom these pairs of opposites ARE the guiding lights of life...what sort of success will lead to lasting happiness?

And can you call it success if it leaves you feeling unhappy?