In today’s busy world we are always busy in doing something. That something is completely extrinsically motivated facts – what others will think about is and what we should do to earn more & more money to become happy afterwards. For discussion let us call these two as – other centric universe & if-then happiness model.
Other-centric happiness model – What satisfies others? Who on earth has been ever be able to find that out? What is the probability that who are around you will be satisfied with you? This is by any chance is chasing the ghost. When a baby is born – it comes on earth with trillion of synapses that are open & yet to be formed by the random stimulus of the environment. These random stimulus forms new synapses & as well as prune down other synapses. These changes establish the personality of a person with some influence around 30% from his genetic. Everyone on earth is unique. Their thoughts & beliefs are different from the others. That is the very basis of the fact that even if yu want you can not be exactly like someone or likeable to someone. Making everyone around you satisfied is therefore is a myth & does not exist. Thus this happiness model never works. Sometimes we do many things for ourselves to make others happy or to produce envy in others. These are like chasing the ghost which does not exist. There is no such thing as absolute ground of satisfaction where all your friends will have satisfaction with you and your enemies will have envies. The very decision making process of such happiness model does not have any mission or vision about self & about one’s own satisfaction. Thus the deep satisfaction of doing something that produces a sense of happiness in our lives does not come from other-centric happiness model.
If-then happiness model – If I earn a lot of money. If I buy a big house near the beach, if I own a big car – then I will become happy. Being happy is a muscle and if it were not used for decades – it will atrophy. If you are not happy what you already have – you will never become happy no matter what you will have in future. That’s simply not possible. All you have the journey – once you reach the goal the goal will not be satisfying you much – that is hedonic adaptation. So if you were not happy while making the journey the goal that you will achieve will not matter much. The intention by which we make your journey – writes our stories in life. The outcome never writes the stories. The stronger the intention is – the better is the story.
Now if we are propelled by these models of happiness our daily lives will keep on producing dissatisfaction. We will always keep on chasing the ghosts for something that does not exist. That’s why we are always busy busy & busy – doing doing & doing something all the time. The more we carry on activities based on aforesaid models the less satisfied we become. Then we keep on trying harder & harder – believing that this time it will produce satisfaction. But those never did. If we just look back to our lives we will understand that our eagerness to become busy & continuously working is nothing but chasing ghost. We need to remember that the speed of the car depends in the fact that how much empty space is there in the road not how many cars are there in the road. The provision of growth in career & in personal life happens in the gaps, in the spaces, inside the emptiness. If there is no space left in a garden we can’t put a new sapling there which has a probability to give a different flower in the future. We can’t write in a white board without creating a space write there with a duster.
Being continuously busy does not keep provision for new growth. It just maintains a reality based on the past achievements. Being extremely busy is not great thing – it’s just a curse which robs the probability of growth in the future. The happiness models also do not work. Hence there is a persistent sense of dissatisfaction in daily life.
On top of that there is a believe that doing the same thing with different intensity again & again produce a different result this time. We become more busy-ness to solve the problems that originally was produced by the busy-ness. It’s not a novelty. The novelty stimulates our brain. It motivates us. It brings satisfaction in our life. Chasing our novelty & our passion for few hours a week propels us towards a more fulfilling life.
Thousands of bytes of conscious data are entering our brain on daily basis. Our brain produces & analyzes these data when we are asleep. We need to look at these data to find out the un-necessary & unproductive thoughts that our brain may be carrying burden with it. We need to look at it. We need to refresh it. But when ? If we are busy all the time.
Our body regenerates when we are not eating for at-least 10 hours and sleeping for at-least seven hours a day. This is the space where growth hormone can do a great job re-generating our body. We need to refresh our body also on daily basis. But when? If we are not getting deep & sound sleep. If we are busy sacrificing sleep & recovery. If we are eating almost eighteen hours a day and supplying our body with food like items without any proper nutrition (body can’t do a good regeneration when you are constatantly putting it into primarily storage mode).
Then next day we are again becoming busy doing & doing. The brain & body asking for a refreshment desperately – we lose our temperament every now & then. We explode or implode. We develop addiction to overcome this constant state of irritation which is basically a protective signal for refreshment. But the busy-ness does not keep any room for the pause where the actual growth & regeneration will happen. Go on like this for years and we are bound to develop some diseases of our body or brain. We are in desperate need to lift this curse of busy-ness that we have put on ourselves. Let us have journey to own the emptiness and fall in love with it.
