happiness

Can positive thoughts and good deeds make us happier and better people? Is this, perhaps, the path to happiness?

Today, achieving happiness seems to be a topic that concerns us more and more. Throughout history, the ongoing search for happiness has absorbed philosophers. Current research seems to prove that a positive attitude could lead to a better quality of life and to greater happiness.

Happiness and being happy has never taken on greater importance than at this current time. Although, in one way or another, happiness has always been there, right in front of us. A tiny imaginary faint line on the horizon, moving further away as we gradually try to reach it. When you look at how far humanity and the world as a whole have developed in material terms, it is food for thought to consider how far we’ve come on a global scale.

Love and compassion
Material wealth isn’t enough to make someone happy. People need other things too in order to feel whole. Take for example love. If we desire a happier life, a happier family, happier neighbours, and most importantly a happier world, then the key word is quality. Even if the world’s 5 billion people were all to become millionaires overnight, they would not achieve greater happiness if that increase in material wealth weren’t matched by inner development, because without this inner work we cannot create peace and tranquility.

If we look at the most important characteristics of a happy family, love and devotion are the key words. Throughout life we continue to need love and devotion to be happy and successful, just as we did as children.

We are born without prejudices and ideals (these develop through our lives). However, the need for affection remains a constant force. True compassion and affection is not only about love, pleasure and the empathy you find in being close to another person, but also a sense of shared and mutual responsibility.

True compassion is born when we realise that people who are suffering, and are unhappy only want the same thing as we do. Happiness is something psychological; money and wealth are only the means that underpin our journey and cannot directly shape it.

Respect for Others
You have to work at happiness – no one can simply give it to you, and that’s not ever going to change. The source is silence and inner peace. When seeking happiness, respect for others and ourselves play a very important role in our quest to become fully-fledged, fulfilled human beings. On a global plan, we are looking at a wider collective consciousness, where the desire for a better life is placed firmly to the fore.

We are moving towards a different experience of life, one where we focus on happiness, not only for ourselves, but also for our fellow human beings. I strongly believe that, in this millennium, the focus will be on the more intangible values. Values where there are a greater spiritual awareness of what is truly important. This will manifest itself both on an inner level but also on a more physical, outer plane.

We have to re-assess our worldview. We live in a society where we are constantly under too much stress, and this pushes us into a dilemma. As a society, we are constantly being presented with a set of values: values which perhaps have little relevance to the individual, but are more in tune with the consumer society as a whole, which constantly throws things at us that we don’t really need.

If we consider those few who have already taken up the fight against the consumer society, they are still in the minority. Maybe they will inspire us to find our own individual paths. The aim should not be to judge others but to be open and considerate. Happiness is not a concept but a choice we all have.

Anne Lise Kjaer
October 1, 2000