Essay On Are We Happier Than Our Forefathers With [PDF]

Essay On Are We Happier Than Our Forefathers

To deal with this subject one e must first understand what ‘happiness’ means.

We have not to misunderstand ‘pleasure’ with ‘happiness’. A lavish life style, a rich home a big lay treated bungalow and a luxurious s car these are today as the means of ‘happiness’. We are very ‘happy’ if we have all these. But it is such a mistaken belief. All these are ‘pleasures’ and ‘comforts’ of life. Physical comforts are the mirage which give a false sense of ‘happiness’. Man has three parts of his being the physical, the mental and the spiritual. Physical comforts are the lowest in the ladder. Healthy thoughts, right behaviour give one the mental well-being. Serving others, being good to 8.15 people, gives one an miner solace and satisfaction – that is a spiritual well being.

So here lies the difference between ‘pleasure’ and ‘happiness’. To have a lot of eat and drink is all enjoying the pleasures of life.

A hermit living in a hut may have so much of selfsatisfaction. He serves people who go to him with words of high thoughts and advice on worthy living. He is a man in rags, eats whatever he gets as charity, still he is ‘happy’. He does not have the ‘pleasures’ of life but he has the ‘happiness’ of his mind and soul.

We today have everything at our command, Science is at our beck and call. We have all the comforts of life which our ancestors never could even dream of. Means of transport, means of communication, means of entertainment Cinema, T.V. with so many channels – phones, E-mails, Fax, Internet what not. Still if you ask even the richest of men if he is really ‘happy’, he may just shake his head to show ‘no, not that’. There are worries, there are anxieties, there is no sense of satisfaction or contentment.

Men of the past had little but they lived all in a joint family serving each other, one another in their needs – sharing whatever they could produce or earn. They lived a life of frugality but contentment. They worked hard and could have a sound sleep at night. The home housed cousins, brothers, uncles, aunts all under one roof. Now there are two room cubicles in large busy towns space even for parents to come and stay. There had been an affectionate bond binding all in the past; there is a distance now even among the brothers. ‘What is this life so full of care’ is what can be said of today’s living.

Happiness comes from within. It is a sense if contentment which comes from the core of the heart. There is a couplet in Hindi which when translated says

‘All the wealth cows, elephant, horses and all the jewels their treasure.

Nothing equals contentment everything turns meaningless in measure.’

It is this contentment which is the basis of ‘Happiness’ and it is this that lacks in today’s life while that was there is the past. That tilts the balance of ‘Happiness’ in favour of our anscestors.