If only I had been taught to be happy!

I was taught the alphabets, the numbers, to build words and sentences, the rules of grammar, the laws of science, the stories in history but I do not remember being taught to be happy.  I now wonder if it is important to be taught to be happy;  was it important for us to be taught to be happy, is it important for our children to be taught to be happy.  I wonder, whether I would have been happier if I had been taught to be happy.

Growing up there were no definitions of happiness, I made my own definitions of happiness from my surroundings.  I was happy when my teacher told me I am good at something, when my parents said I am a good girl, when I did well at school and got good marks.  I was happy when I did things the way it was meant to be done, when I followed all the rules, when I did not break any rules, when I got a new toy, when I got a new dress, when I started in my new class….the list goes on.  Happiness was determined by what I got and when I got something, it was totally dependent on external events and circumstances, most of which I had not control on.  The feeling did not last long and the feeling went away in a day or two.

I heard the birds chirping in the morning, I woke up to the sounds and smell of coffee and my mother making dosas,  to the cassette playing M S Subbalakshmi’s suprabhatam, I did not think that these things should make me happy.  I loved my school, the walk to the bus stop with my father, the ride in the school  bus with my friends, the assembly at school, even my lessons, the music class and the dance classes.  However I did not know that is happiness, I kept waiting for that feeling of happiness.

Then there was this superstition that if one laughed too much, one will have to cry later, so I was worried when I laughed with my friends or while reading a Laurel and Hardy comic.  So much so that when the days I laughed too much I would be worried and wonder if I did something wrong by laughing so hard.  The pleasure and the happiness of the laugh remained momentarily, just while I laughed and it went away instantly.

Then one leader of my team, very early in my career talked about being “here and now”, experiencing the moment and living in the present.  That was the first time I pondered about living the moment.  Later years brought more understanding about enjoying the moments but the moments of happiness itself needed an external stimulus, by habit.

If only someone had focussed on happiness by oneself and directed me on that course, caught me when I was happy and told me that was happiness.  If only someone had helped me understand the feeling of happiness, if someone had defined the feeling of happiness, if only someone had told me that I am the reason to be happy and that I can bring myself happiness it would have been a great story for me, a different life experience for me.

I now know that before academic success, financial success comes the happiness of individuals.  We focus so much on successes and we make it the core, thinking that those successes will make us happy.  Little do we realise that in that frenzy to attain successes we forget about happiness.

If only, I had been taught to be happy!