The Aspects of Happiness
To be happy is to be content with what you have. You don't expect more. You don't want more.
So to know if you're happy or not, you would first have to know how much you want. To that end I've identified a few areas that need to be fulfilled to achieve an environment where happiness can thrive. This environment won't give you happiness, but it will remove your worries so you have the chance to achieve that happiness.
It's hard to define it all at once so I've divided it into sections that can be focused on one at a time.
1. Physical Environment
Inner. Body, health.
Outer. Where you live. Hills? City? Island? Big house? Small house? Mansion?
2. Social Environment
Inner. What kind of person you are. Do you enjoy having people over?
Outer. How many people do you meet everyday? How many friends do you invite over?
3. Emotional Environment
Inner. How you deal with your own emotions. Are you calm? Easily angered?
Outer. When you interact with your friends and family, what's the level of emotional intimacy? Do you express everything loudly? Or do you tease each other a lot? Do you want to keep the parent-child divide?
4. Intellectual Environment
Inner. Do you challenge yourself intellectually? Always look for the meaning behind things?
Outer. Do situations arise that stimulate your mind?
5. Spiritual Environment
Inner. What level of awareness you're at. How you feel spiritually.
Outer. What those around you are doing spiritually. The level of encouragement or discouragement from community.
I'll spend some time writing up about each environment. What do I mean? How does it help us thrive?
And of course, where does money fit into this?
Happiness is getting enough sleep
I said this before half-jokingly.
My internship was going on. My final year project (FYP) was due in 3 weeks. My debate team was heading off to a tournament in 5 weeks.
Each of these is enough to consume 50% of my time normally. (30% being for sleep and 20% for other stuff)
50% x 3 = 150%
Sounds like bad math to me coz it doesn't add up. Where on earth could I find 36 hours in a day?
There just wasn't enough time
So sleep had to go away. I would finish work everyday and do the 40 min drive back. I'd work on my FYP for a while, preparing the presentation and typing up the final thesis. Then I'd trudge to the university and have debate training every night until 11pm at least. Often till 1am.
Then back home I'd still have to work on my FYP or if I had time then I would read up on some news or other.
We won a trophy but that's not the point
I finished my internship, successfully gave my FYP presentation and went to the tournament. We got the damned Australs trophy (ESL) and I could them finally get back home and SLEEP.
Not enough sleep makes you crazy
No wonder sleep deprivation can be torture. The happiest moments become pure pain if you have to keep fighting to stay awake.
All the stuff that happens to you everyday has no time to be sorted by your mind during normal sleep (this process is called dreaming). It makes the days just merge together, without a solid start or end to any day.
It makes you go crazy.
Happiness means getting enough sleep.
If you were happy, would you know it?
I know what you're thinking.
"That's the silliest question in the world!!"
After all, how can you not know if you're happy? But the fact is that you don't. Not till you notice that you have a great family that supports you, or that you're not living in the slums.
The fact is that we don't normally know what we want and it's only the moment it's gone that we realize how good we had it! I can only imagine one reason for this. We don't really know what makes us happy.
We chase other things
And so we chase other things, until family and friends are forgotten. Until we trade that job with a great boss for a job with a little higher pay that we hate.
Maybe, just maybe, we could sit down for a minute. And think about what we actually want in life. What would make us happy. The core values that we are really after.
Maybe we're already happy?
And maybe, just maybe, we'll find that a lot of what we're after is already there around us. Sitting right there waiting for us to appreciate it.
So the question goes:
If you were happy, would you know it?