Today morning while going through the newspaper I am across a very unusual article which made me sit-up. The article’s headline was “Now, Courses on Happiness at IIM, IIT”. This awakened my curiosity and I decided to read the article.
The article reported that IIM – Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has altered its syllabus and started electives on happiness and emotional stability, health economics and the like. Similarly, the IIT Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn) has started a course teaching students how to learn. While at MICA, the students are provided with an opportunity to delve deeper into OTT platform craze through three courses.
The focus on happiness and learning by these esteemed institutions is just a reminder that happiness has a humungous role to play in our lives. We need to learn to be happy & stay happy and let ourselves enjoy those few simple moments of life in which we feel genuinely happy. The main point of consideration here is that why should we be content with those few moments of happiness – why can’t we bring change in our lives to make happiness a permanent member of our family, our life, our conscious and sub-conscious minds and of our entire persona.
When I read that IIM – A is offering an elective in happiness, it set my grey cells to work. Can happiness or being happy be really taught in a classroom or theoretical subject? Happiness can be explained, symptoms and feelings of happiness can be defined, but can being happy and experiencing that joy of happiness really be taught in the closed confines of a classroom of a college or university?
Well I am no expert but I am no fool either – I wouldn’t comment on anything that I haven’t experienced and know for sure whether it is good or bad, right or wrong. So similarly, until the time I get to review and understand the syllabus of IIM-A’s elective on happiness and emotional stability or do not hear first-hand feedback from people who have taken this elective, I will choose to reserve my comments for later.
However the point I would like to drive home here is that happiness is like a butterfly – nature’s beautiful and innocent creation. Like a butterfly, happiness flutters from one place to another, sometimes spending more time at one place and sometimes less time. Like the butterfly, happiness is also elusive – if we try to catch it and keep it in captivity, it will try and evade us and at the smallest of opportunities, it will fly away. But if we attract happiness like we attract a butterfly to sweet nectar which it desires, it will come willingly and stay for long. The sweet nectar in our case is learning to appreciate all that we have been given in life and making each moment of our life meaningful with our good deeds. A good deed, no matter how simple it may be, when done genuinely from heart, gives you that strong positive feeling of satisfaction and which is the sweet nectar of happiness that I am talking about.
Being happy is a wonderful feeling and we all deserve to acquire that feeling and experience it. We all deserve happiness and what we lack is the route to finding this happiness. There is no one fixed route or path to happiness. There are multiple roads leading to true happiness and it is for each one of us to find out that one road which will take us to the promised destination of true of happiness.
There is no readymade prescription for happiness and that is why I am not in a position to help you to find your own road to happiness but yes, as a true friend, I can guide you towards the path of happiness but in the end, the journey has to be your own. Just like you, I have also not found true happiness, but the light has dawned on me that yes, there is something called true happiness in life which can make your life worth living and just like you, I am also on my individual personal journey of discovery for true happiness.
So keep trying to find your individual ultimate road to true happiness and do not rest in peace till you have found it because once you have found it, life will have an entirely new perspective for you and your near and dear ones.
Keep smiling and stay happy……
Dr. Rajesh Mankani
