Saturday, August 08, 2009

Life, happiness and Societal Roles


What is happiness and who are the people who are truly happy ?

Happiness is a state of contentment. It is a state of acceptance of yourself and your role in society. It is a state of accepting limitation on what you can or cannot do.

Hence is being happy truly being happy ?

There are various roles we play in society. Some at a personal level - a wife, a father, a husband, a friend etc.. And there are some roles we play at a professional level - A sales person, a lawyer, a consultant, a government servant, an analyst , a secretary etc.

How does a person get into a certain role ? Society, environment and lack of information play a major part. One does various things according to the inputs and guidance they receive all their life. Then once they have sufficient training in a facet of life they are pushed forth to play their role...
Socially - they get married, they have a child , they make relationships etc..
Professionally - people get into job roles according to the skillset they are able to portray to a group of people to convince them to let you join their kind. Hence it is not by a pure choice buy by the choice of a set of people they you get into a role.

e.g. out of a B-School a person can get to be a sales guy, a marketing professional , an advert guy, a finance analyst, a mgmt consultant , a manager in a firm , an entrepreneur etc. but mostly he has only limited scope to make a choice, but instead he parades his skills and wares to all the professionals who are willing to look at him and then lands into a given role.
There are various people who have trouble adjusting to their roles in the first year of being in it. It is a time of frustration , exploration , looking at change opportunities etc. Hence it a period of mental trauma and turbulence.

Coming back to the main thread, accepting a role is the only way of contentment or happiness. Else this will lead to depression and could show as aggression (passive or active) and you will be antisocial in some ways.

What should one do ?
- a person could accept a given role by controlling his/her mind. else can make changes to the way they do things, This can me manifested by a change of role by changing a job. Quitting and exploring life to understand it better. Taking education as a route to change your skill sets and hence job role. Do a drastic change in profession.
- One should remember that any harsh action in one role will definitely have an impact on the other roles that you play no matter how separated you keep them.

- Every decision is a choice. Every choice has an impact. One should be willing to accept the implication and live with it. Else happiness will be an eternal delusion. -

1 comment:

Rama Venkataraman said...

Agreed happiness is finding contentment to the present role one is playing.

But a richer happiness comes having the capacity to listen what the heart wants and modulate one's life accordingly.That will make mind take its natural level and need and life happy and pleasurable.

Such dialogues can help to reach inner depths and understand one's own needs.