Is Being Happy So Difficult

Whether we know it, accept it or like it, we as human beings are programmed to achieve happiness. All decisions (and here I am not exaggerating at all; I really mean ALL) that we consciously or subconsciously take are with this only thought (and may I add hope here); that the decision and subsequent course of action & its result will lead to higher state of happiness. 

Logically speaking, a reduction of stress, strain, sorrow, discomfort, pain can also be considered as increase in happiness. The practical equivalent of that is, reducing the debt is in some sense also an investment (think of that part pre-payment of housing loan / mortgage).

Once we accept this as the basic premise of human life; it’s not hard to follow what most of the religions, spiritual gurus, self-help groups & books are preaching. They all tell you the same. Take an inward look to know better (or may be for the first time in some cases) and think; what really makes you happy. 

Why would that be so difficult? I know what makes me happy. Hanging out with friends, playing with kids, playing XBOX games and the list is unlimited. The problem here is of time-boxing. Being happy for the instance and being happy overall are two altogether different things. Let me get a little more philosophical here. Though we know life as a continuous stream of events, we live in moments. Thus life becomes sum total of all these moments of joy & despair. As they say, “Whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Therefore it becomes absolutely imperative that while making current moment happier we don’t lose our focus on the next moment and moments after that. Today’s happiness should not affect happiness of tomorrow.

Most of our ancestors have stumbled on this precise problem and addressed it by setting some guidelines. These guidelines help us to lead happy life and happier end. We know these guidelines as religions. More about it in next post.

My first post

After creating the blog, I have waited too long to write this first port. Let's start with the definition of the name that has been given to the blog.



Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics) lists the meaning of Metaphysics as "Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of being and the world."

From the looks of it, we don't see anything practical about it. Right? Well that's the thing that was going on in my mind for quite some time. Even if we gather the information about beginning of this universe, how are we going to use it in our day-to-day life. Any knowledge that does not help improve our lives would not be considered helpful.

The (ideal) ultimate goal of every human being to be happy and off course happier tomorrow. All the knowledge that can make us happy can be termed as "practical". It helps us in bridging the gap between "where we are" and "where we want to be".

In my subsequent posts I would be taking this thread further, "Can we get any practical help from philosophy and metaphysics in particular?". Let's see how it turns out.