“Happy – How to be?”

“Happy New Year “- “Happy New year” - All of us have been greeted with this one message multiple times in last few days. The question is - How can we make this year happy & what is happiness?

Madam Toastmaster, Fellow Toastmasters & honored guests – Today I will share with you concepts of happiness that you have not read in any book, and two tips on how to be happy.

Whatever we do is to achieve happiness. You go to work, a player practices for long hours for that win, Jim saves for that dream car, we all gather here every Sunday for this awesome TM meeting – everything a person does it is for ultimate need of happiness.

However please note - this kind of happiness is temporary. Let us understand it with this example of:

Job Promotion – I worked hard during the year for promotion at year end. I got the projects executed successfully, managed the teams well, contributed to best practices – did all the things needed for that promotion. At year end appraisal, I got that promotion!! Jim, my colleague, commented – “Hey Arun, you must be happy that you got this promotion”. “Yes” I said elated – “I am really happy to get the promotion I deserved”.

2 months later, on a similar comment, my response was “What happy – Nothing much has changed with this promotion. I still do the same job, same tasks”.

We noticed that after sometime, the feeling of happiness subsided. So what happened here – let us understand with this analogy:

This is happiness that is within each of us (fist). It is surrounded by wall of bricks (Bricks of desires). So we do not see or experience this happiness within. And we look out for happiness in outer world of desires. When a desire is fulfilled, a brick disappears from this wall. Now we can experience the happiness within from this opening in the wall. After sometime new brick of desire fills the opening in that wall, and that happiness subsides.

Then the question is - How we can get real and permanent happiness? Happiness is your nature and it is within each one of us. You just need to nurture it to help it blossom. Now let me share 2 tips that will help in this process:

1. Build Positive Mental attitude – Keep happy thoughts and express gratitude for what you have received so far. Simple things such as smile, acceptance of any event or incident, avoiding too much thought analysis help in building positive mental attitude.

2. Transform your desires into intentions. Desires lead to undue affection for the results, makes one’s journey towards a goal more stressful and unhappy. These desires form the opaque wall between you and the happiness. Intentions on other hand are determined efforts that help you achieve same goals, but without lust and craving. This helps in keeping the journey towards that

goal more enjoying and happy. It’s like converting that opaque wall into a transparent one, so that you can experience the happiness all along.

To conclude,

Permanent Happiness is not outside but within each one of us. We can be happy with simple yet powerful changes in our mental attitude and approaching our goals as intentions (not as desires). Come let’s make “Happiness our Habit” in this New Year 2011.