Happiness is a mode in the mind

My friend Vishvanand raised the issue of happiness and its elusive nature. To state a cliche 'Happiness is a state of mind not a goal to reach". It means that no matter where you are in life, happiness is a state which the mind takes on. In other words you can be 'decide' to be happy at anything. Off course I am not saying that you should try to be happy where genuine unhappiness is natural. I am talking day to day situations. Let us say you have decided to be at work before the boss comes to work. Your expectation is that the boss will think that you must have been at work since a long while whereas you have deftly times to be there just 5 minutes before the boss. Now this is a great idea. While boss may not even bother to think when you came, the problem is this. No matter how you try you are always late and the boss has visited your cube a couple of times by the time you show up. (so your colleague tells you)

So now that is a situation when you have to decide, in what state you want your mind to be in. You may feel extremely disappointed and unhappy that even though you know this secret recipe for success you have not been able to capitalize on it. This is the 4th year since you made this new year resolution that you will be at work early, It is a valid situation that makes you unhappy. Or you can be happy in spite of it. In that case you need to consciously 'disassociate' your happiness from this situation. Even before that you should not make this a cause for unhappiness. A good situation would be that you derive happiness from some thing else. May be playing with your kids. Could be watching your favorite program too.

One of the best quotes I have heard is " It does not matter where you live. All of us live in one place and that is our head". So if you keep your head a happy place then any place or any situation should not affect that happiness in your mind. Off course it is easier said than done.
But at least it prevents us from having wrong expectations. Expecting happiness to come 'if only you get your green card' or 'if only I got that promotion' is not the right thing. One needs to be happy in the mind irrespective of the external situation.

Other way of saying is that in order to be happy you should appreciate what you have. So whatever you have or don't have your mind should adopt a state of happiness.

You may think this is cheating oneself. But there is a well established fact that says "You are what you think". So it may be OK to cheat yourself into believing you are happy. There is no one thing which is capable of making everyone happy. So if in your mind, having nothing to so on a weekend makes you happy, I think you should believe it and just enjoy that happiness. By doing this you are training your mind to be happy independent of external situations. (i.e what happens outside does not take away your happiness).