Sukh Mhanje Nakki Kai Asta | What exactly does it mean to be happy?

The phrase “mala sanga sukh mhanje nakki kai asta” is from a line from a Marathi song that roughly translates to “tell me, what exactly does it mean to be happy?” For quite some time, this question has lived in my mind. This question popped up when I was being driven around the windy mountains of Bhutan on my recent vacation. I kept wondering why I didn’t feel happy with my life despite having many things to be grateful for.

So, what exactly does it mean to be happy? This question has a different answer depending on the individual, and no one explanation applies to every human being. Going further, even in one’s life, the answer to this question may change depending on a person’s values at a given time. So the real question is, “what values do I hold in high regard that end up giving me happiness?”. Trying to answer this question has its own set of problems. 

To begin with, what does someone categorize as “happiness”? For example, I have loved playing video games since I was a kid. They used to make me happy. But then and even now, I can’t play video games 24/7 without getting rid of whatever else is in my life. Another example as an adult I would give is alcohol, it’s fun to drink alcohol, but it doesn’t mean that I should drink more and become an alcoholic to achieve long-term happiness. In my opinion, some common long-term metrics for happiness are money, material possessions, fame, health, and relationships with people.

But I have realized that none of these metrics can make you happy in the long term if you don’t hold any of those metrics in high regard in your life. For example, if my happiness metric is money, it doesn’t matter how much I have; I will always look for more. In that case, I will only be happy if I hold money in such high regard that I am willing to sacrifice other things and enjoy the struggle to earn more. Another example can be being healthy, but are my values to be healthy strong enough not to eat three pizzas a week? Before moving forward, let’s look back at my life in the last few years and try to identify what things I valued in life.

May 2021 is when I started my job and started to earn money. At the time, all my friends and colleagues were in Singapore, and I thought my life would be perfect if I got a visa to Singapore and was close to my friends. Then I thought that if I had people who were close to me, I don’t need anything else; I would be happy no matter what, and it would be perfect. As I started earning money and saw other people making more than me, I thought I would be happy if I had just that bit more money, and things would be perfect. Then I thought that if I could make everyone happy with me, it would be perfect, and I would be happy with myself. Following that, I thought I would feel happy if I were to be in a relationship, and everything would be perfect. Then recently, the thing that would bring me happiness is to have a fulfilling day where I am productive and have a stable state of mind, have lesser mood swings and can manage my relations with people nicely would be perfect. I wouldn’t need to care about anything else.

See my problem? I strive to have a “perfect” life with my ever-changing values that I hold in high regard—all these changes in values in less than two years. Moving forward, my complex set of things I value will keep changing, and I have realized that striving for that “perfection” will never make me happy in the long term. Don’t get me wrong, changing values so much has also made me grow personally; I feel more mature and confident. I think I have grown to understand my emotions better and others’ emotions better.

Looking back, there were happy moments in all the periods when I held different things in high regard, and I am grateful for that. Without going through these constant changes, I probably wouldn’t have realized this issue. I am sure there are way more values that I have forgotten to mention, but the point is that chasing perfection did not make me happy, and the hard pill to swallow is that none of these values are perfect, happiness is not something that I can get for once, and it will stay eternally. I wish it were like that, but it isn’t. I have good pay considering my location, a lovely job that I enjoy, and a wonderful family and the best set of friends one could ask for, yet I feel suffocated and unhappy.

Initially, I thought all of these thoughts were depressing, but the more I spend time with them, I understand that it isn’t depressing. It instead feels very satisfying to understand my thoughts. I recently went on a trip to Bhutan with my mother, and it was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had; this was also the time I got to spend a lot of time with myself. Initially, throwing away these thoughts by distracting myself with something else is an extreme sensation. It felt demoralizing, disgusting, and dirty when I realized that there are so many good things in my life, and yet my wanting to be perfect doesn’t let me enjoy these beautiful things I have in life. All these thoughts have led me to become self-aware and question the previously made values I had in life. It initially made me feel suffocated, but now it feels very open and unrestrained. The only catch is that I need to figure out where to go next.

By this point, here is the conclusion I have reached internally to my initial question. First, happiness doesn’t mean problems and pain do not exist in life. Neither is avoiding the problems, and pain is going to help. Yes, drinking a bunch of alcohol or playing games the entire day might distract me from the pains in life for a short time, but in the end, until I accept those problems in life, I will not be able to have a fulfilling life. Notice how I didn’t say feel happy because the only way to feel happy in the long term is to live a fulfilling life filled with all the beautiful things in life and the pains of life.