Meaning and Path of Happiness

Happiness is doing what we care about most, thus increasing our satisfaction and meaning in life. But most of us fail to get this happiness and remain busy in other things, like acquiring more of wealth. These other things are merely in search of happiness but far from happiness. Even in America, people spend merely 20 percent of their time in doing what they love to do like talking with close friends, bonding with loved ones, creating, playing, etc. In India, the situation is worse as 95 percent of people have no time for pursuing these activities. What we remain busy in are activities we are forced on us by circumstances and hate to do such as commuting, standing in queues at ration shops, post office, bank counters, etc. and fixing broken appliances.

Technological advancements, social progress, economic prosperity, etc. which we got on our path for happiness fail to take us there in-spite of our expectations and the best intentions. These merely take us to success, intelligence, knowledge, maturity, wisdom, relationships, wealth and meaning in life. But happiness is much more and different from these.  

Happiness lies in getting engaged in something with full interest and concentration, and this comes when we invoke our curiosity in the matter. Curiosity is desire to know more, a state of active and genuine interest. Although curiosity in an instinctive attribute, it could further be cultivated, nurtured and developed intuitively. This reliable key of happiness is largely overlooked by most of us. As a result, we keep on doing things without any genuine interest in them which, in turn, results in our bad performances.    


We are at our best when we have a genuine interest in what we do, and this comes from being curious about the thing and result of our performance. A good workmanship is not only a thing of great pleasure to the performer but also inspiring to others in contact. Thus, happiness spreads like a viral disease in the society through curiosity.