We live in a time of intense change, where artificial intelligence and technological advancements are transforming the world overnight. This new reality is referred to as a BANI world, characterized as: Brittle Anxious Nonlinear Incomprehensible The BANI world...
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The World Happiness Day
Happiness is the state of mind. It's up to us to give it meaning and confirmation.
Ida Protuger
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International day of happiness is a wonderful occasion to share Tagore’s poem about the madman who undertook a quest to find the stone of wisdom. He set out on that journey which became his life.
Tired, already hopeless, walking along the ocean shore, he met a boy who asked him about the golden chain around his waist. The madman struck himself on the head. The chain was iron, but somewhere along the way, it turned into gold. He collected pebbles, polished them from the chain, and threw them away. It appears that accidentally he founded and threw that way the stone of wisdom. He “returned on his footsteps to seek anew the lost treasure, with his strength gone, his body bent, and his heart in the dust, like a tree uprooted.”
Happiness as a quest for untouchable
Tagore makes beautiful allegories of the quest for imagined happiness: “Just as the ocean forever lifts its arms to the sky for the unattainable. Just as the stars go in circles, yet seeking a goal that can never be reached.”
That is our quest for happiness. Imagination, longing, never reachable. But it is everywhere if only one sees it. Tagore describes his hero in the poem as “weak as a shadow, his lips tight-pressed, like the shut-up doors of his heart.”
Hence, for happiness, there is a need for open senses, mind, and heart.
Because the feeling of happiness is a moment that needs to be experienced. It requires us to open our senses, and pause briefly to give it significance so it may enter the file of happiness in our emotional memory.
Role of senses
I’ve learned to recognize those moments of happiness. Whether it’s a leisurely bike ride on a summer night under a supermoon, a heartfelt conversation with a person I love, a delightful evening, new experiences, warm embraces, the beauty of nature, or nice memories.
Why open senses, mind, and heart?
So we can see, smell, touch, hear, taste happiness. To stop for a moment, so we don’t throw the stone too quickly and happen not to notice it. We’ve had a beautiful day that we haven’t given importance to, and we think happiness is in the Maldives, a house from our dreams, imagined love, or money.
In fact, happiness is the state of mind. It’s up to us to give it meaning and confirmation.