Money, Power & Happiness

Who is happy? Are you happy? Happiness is a state of the mind, not equated to, or measured by, money or power. We have enough examples that prove the contrary. Many a time it is a mirage, the pursuit of which is induced by outside forces, but the truest happiness comes from giving happiness…

We see children playing with balloons at parties. One child suddenly grabs a red balloon and yells: “This balloon is mine!” On hearing this, all other children drop their balloons and fight over this red balloon. This behaviour of children has been explained as ‘mimetic desire’ by René Girad, a French historian.

DESIRES FROM OUTSIDE

Similarly, a lot of our desires do not emerge from within, but from ‘outside’. We import most of our powerful desires by imitating the desires of other people. Human desire is not a linear process, where a person autonomously desires an inherently desirable object. Rather, we desire according to the desire of others. If we are not aware, others influence us on what to desire. And this is amplified on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, which in reality serve as excellent conduits of mimetic desire. French thinker Montesquieu explained it beautifully by saying, “if we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are”.

AD PUSHED ‘HAPPINESS’

‘Happiness’ is the end-objective of our life. We keep on trying throughout our life to reach it but seldom get it. We adopt various routes to reach this cherished destination but we fail to succeed and the main reason is that we want to be happier than others. Montesquieu’s theory proves correct. The surrounding circumstances make the thing more difficult. To explain this, take the example of the advertising industry which works on the hypothesis of inducing, ‘mimetic desire’ in us. Top models, film celebrities, cricketers keep on appearing with some products and convey to us that we will be happier if we possess those products. We might have been happy at home with our possessions but the advertisements push us to think otherwise. We now desire to be happier and then a race starts to own more of the advertised brands.

Most of us chase happiness like a traveller in a desert who chases a mirage, which is just an illusion and not reality. This happens as we do not know what happiness is. We do not understand the parameters of happiness and make our own presumptions about them. One most common presumption is that money is the most important thing to give happiness and throughout our life, we remain busy making money. We forget our family, our leisure, our hobby, our holidays and even our health, running after money.

IS MONEY=HAPPINESS?

But, is money actually a synonym for happiness? The answer is a big ‘No’. Money has a limited role. It is needed to cater to our reasonable needs but beyond that, it is not significant. Many of us realise it in the later part of our lives. Money earned beyond our needs is money to be used by others and many times it causes disputes in the family and amongst friends. Take the example of the richest men in the world like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. Huge amounts of money could not pump happiness into their family life. While Jeff Bezos got divorced, Bill Gates is facing a divorce. Steve Jobs with the financial power of ‘Apple’ behind him realised on his death bed that money could not reduce death pain. A similar story is said about Alexander the Great. The biggest con-queror of the world with a lot of money could not save his death pain and died young. The last words that Steve Jobs said about money was: “I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to. At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realise that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become mean-ingless in the face of impending death.”

Our ancient texts teach us that it is contentment and not wealth that gives us happiness. See the chirping birds, smiling trees, and blooming flowers, they do not have money but they are happy. Human beings are the only creations on this planet that require money, but they are the unhappiest lot. Richer the countries, more the suicides by their people. This proves that money is not happiness or money is not the sole source of happiness.

"Coupled with money, another parameter perceived as happiness is ‘power’. There is nothing wrong with being powerful and to a limited extent, it does give us some joy. But again, beyond a reasonable limit, power creates more problems and unhappines"

IS POWER=HAPPINESS?

Coupled with money, another parameter perceived as happiness is ‘power’. There is nothing wrong with being powerful and to a limited extent, it does give us some joy. But again, beyond a reasonable limit, power creates more problems and unhappiness. The head that wears the crown has to experience the pricks of thorns. Power gives authority but it is accompanied by worries and pain. The powerful person is always fearful about losing his power and that makes him a manipulator. He manipulates so as not to lose his power. In a democratic world like ours, a politician is perceived as powerful but we know how fearful he is about losing an election. Many wrong things are done to win an election. It has normally been seen that a powerful person misuses his power and in the process, gets trapped in a painful vicious circle. There is an adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Whatever may be the outward perception, a corrupt person has no happiness. He always remains scared of getting caught. A powerful person, however, can remain happy if he uses his power for helping others but this seldom happens.

IS SUBSTANCE=HAPPINESS?

Like money or power, there are many such ingredients that people think can give them happiness but the end-result is always just the opposite. Some people go for immoral sexual activities to get some thrill, while some go for boozing and gambling. These immoral activities give them many problems like diseases and also the feeling of guilt. There are people who copy others whom they think are happy people, but they fail to see their inner unhappiness. We forget that all that glitters is not gold. If we copy a wrong we will be wronged ourselves.

We keep chasing happiness and never become happy. We commit basic mistakes as happiness is a direction and not a place. As Aristotle said, “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” We do not have to go running to reach the destination of happiness, but we have to just look within. We have to look around and see even small things, as these small things can give us big happiness. Happiness is a state of mind and we have to just tune our mind to accept even the smallest reason to be happy. It is not how much we have but how much we enjoy that makes happiness.

As Dalai Lama said, “Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions.” Give happiness to others and happiness will automatically come to you. It is something like Newton’s third law of motion—that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You make others smile and the smile of happiness will come back on you. As George Sand has said, “There is only one happiness in life. To love and be loved”.

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness. There is no benchmark to understand whether we are happy or not. A small thing of watching a flower bloom can make us happy. Happiness comes out of love and compassion for any living creation. Flora and fauna can give us as much happiness as being with a loving family. Helping the needy without any selfish reason too gives much happiness.

Why is a child always smiling and happy, as compared to mature people? The answer is that a child lives in the present, while we live either in the past or are worried about the future. So, to be happy, we should learn from a child and try to enjoy today. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is yet to come. We should definitely do our work to give us a better future but simultaneously, we should keep enjoying the present to be happy. Our output and efficiency will also improve if we are happy while doing our work.

Coronavirus keeps on reminding us that anybody can die at any time. This is the good thing about Coronavirus, as normally we forget this truth of life. We have to do good things and try to remain happy till we remain on this planet. We came on the planet crying, but we should endeavour to leave the planet smiling. This will be our biggest achievement in life and not how much bank balance we are leaving behind or what position we reach before dying.

We should do our karma and forget the result, as taught by Lord Krishna in the ‘Bhagawad Geeta’. Good deeds will give us happiness despite the end-result. Means justify the end and not the other way around. We have the right to live but just living is not enough. We have to live happily.