The Happiness Paradigm

I have just rung in the New Year... But, given all the new age hype about living in the ‘now’ and not worrying on the morrow or not dwelling on one’s past, I was wondering if dwelling on the past is as bad as it is made out to be. Dreaming / planning about the future, may be yes. The past teaches you lessons and shows you the path not to take, while dreaming of the future only helps in aspiring and planning for the future, a future that can be offset by events we have no control over. So, my two cents would be to embrace the past, use the experience, tend the bruises from the falls and learnings and learn to live in the now.  

As one rings in the new year we are being flooded with Happy New Year messages digitally every other minute. Images, GIFs, videos, memes and what not... ‘Happy’ in the Happy New year seems to be an abused adjective. Circa 2022 was a year of mixed emotions for me, more biased on the side of sorrow than the joys. Lost a dear cousin at an age I shouldn’t be losing him. The gurus of happiness say cliched stuff like happiness is a choice and one choose to be happy and all. I totally disagree with that.  Did his family or me have a choice to be happy when he left us on a Friday evening? No, Not all. Happiness is not an individual perception, Happiness cannot be a choice, Happiness is a state of mind heavily influenced by the past and present events. One can be unhappy or happy thinking about the past, one can be happy or unhappy thinking about the present, but one can never be happy or unhappy thinking about the future.

So, wishing someone a Happy New Year is just a cliché and means nothing. New Year greetings should be changed to Wishing one a New Year with whatever it has to offer you! Offended? Call me a pessimist or whatever, why should I be an Optimist when it comes to happiness? How can I decide on the unknown as defined by the Latin root of Optimist, Optimus which means it is not only good or better but the best, that is utter rubbish, it might soothe my senses but rationally I do not know if the future holds the best or worst for me? 

We live in a world today that says data is king. Can someone confidently tell me with the assistance of AI and all the data over the last 2022 years that you can confidently predict a Happy New Year to the 8 Billion plus people around the globe.

So, Here’s Wishing you all a Year filled with 365 ‘Nows’, How the ‘Now’ will turn out to be, neither You nor I know. Take the experience from the past in your stride, buckle up and ride the roller coaster of life in the present!  Unbuckle as you reach the destination and be ready to buckle up after another365 nows.

Future can only be understood when the Future becomes the Now!!!