HAPPINESS
Dhaval Thakkar
Questions… Questions have always been our part of life. We are always asked questions by all kinds of people – people who love us, people who hate us, people who pretend to love us, people who don’t mean to us, people who don’t care about us, etc.
The most interesting questions are faced by us as a kid – the kind of questions that we answer very enthusiastically at that time. One such question I’m sure everyone would have faced as a kid would be, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Isn’t it? I’m sure a small smile crossed your lips right now and you are already down the memory lane of your childhood. You’ve also started to remember those people who asked you this question. This also happened in the school during the English classes when the syllabus was finished and you still had some English classes left before the term ends. Every kid had to go in front of the class and represent their aim in life, didn’t matter truth of not. Did you face the same trauma? Do you remember the answer or answers you gave at that time? Have you become one of them?
I’m sure the answers to this question are various – Doctor, Engineer, Lawyer, Actor, Dancer, Singer, Musician, Writer, etc. The list is endless. Being a kid, did we know what we wanted to be when we grow up? Did we really care? Just because we were asked this question, we had to answer. I wonder where these answers came from!
And if by any chance you replied with “I don’t know", more questions backfire, “You don’t know what you want to be when you grow up?”, “You don’t have any aim in life” and so on. So, what should have been our aim? I still wonder what is the ultimate purpose of becoming something.
Today lots of people are doing what they don’t want to do or they are not supposed to do. Everybody is lost in fulfilling their so called ‘Responsibilities’ that they don’t have time for themselves. Everybody is busy in doing what he feels will make others happy. But, what about you? Just think, when is the last time you were really happy? When is the last time you did what you want to do – something crazy, something you had dreamed of doing many years back, being a child?
Somebody is interested in singing and he’s doing an engineering job – why – just because he studied engineering because his parents wanted to do so – and now to earn money, to earn living for himself and his family. Someone else dreamed of traveling the world and is now doing MBA because his father wants him to handle his business after him. There are hundreds of such examples - and actually its not important to list names and situations over here – what is important is to know the purpose of life? And even after doing what we are expected to do, are we really happy? Are the people around us happy? If collecting money, owning bungalows and luxurious cars and many such things is considered happiness, then yes, they would be happy. But again, the question comes, are you REALLY happy?
I hope one day I see some kid replying the question with, “When I grow up, I want to be HAPPY”. Maybe that might help.
