We live in a capitalistic society. ‘Do the best, be the best’, that is what the whole world says. Our success is measured based on terms of how busy we are and we want our time to be as productive as it could be. While it is not necessarily wrong with being busy and productive, and wanting to be best but sometimes the best thing you can do is doing nothing. Sometimes the best we can be is being average. There should be nothing wrong with that too. But being average is not totally accepted by our society. Social media bursts us with feeds of people having their best life: going for vacation, buying a new car, starting a family, moving in with their partner, even showing off what they do not really have. You know why it is called feeds, because we feed what people show in Instagram or Facebook and decide what happiness is. And defining happiness looking at other people’s life, that sounds like a wrong way to do it, doesn’t it?

Society and Parents

I am not trying to blame the society. It is how it is and we have to accept that. But we also have to accept ourselves, learn to know what true happiness means to us and not follow the hype (which is actually really hard). In this fast growing society where we are moving as fast as we can to achieve the things, we were told would make us happy, give us the successful life. In contrast, we were never really told to do what would make us happy or at least in my case.

My parents were not provided with the “education” that I got or have been getting. They did not go to high-school, which they blamed to for not having a good life. Which was somewhat true because there were people with degrees having a safe stable job, monthly income whereas they were struggling to meet the needs. So they wanted us to have a good “education”, for which I am thankful to them. But would higher qualifications made them professionally successful? Probably, yes. Would the higher qualifications made them happy than they are now? That is debatable.

As kids, unfortunately I and my sister were not the most brilliant student or the best child one can have. We were average and for being that we were compared to the other children saying how good they were and how we should work hard to be like them. It is the story of most of Nepalese kids, even kids in general. We were not accepted for who we were.

Taking the drivers seat

Since we are grown up now, both of us are surprised with the fact that we do not know what would really make us happy. We are running but we do not really know what we are running to. Just running and running until we are exhausted. In his book, ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck‘ Mark Manson points out how this society treats an average being. We are only focused on two extreme side, either the best or the last. The best is celebrated, praised, followed and the last is helped, sympathized. Whereas the average is just an average. They are told to work hard and one day you too will be the best.

As we are able to decide for ourselves now, what if we told ourselves being happy and satisfied with what ever we have is the best we can be. Being an average, and staying happy with it, that might not be an idea our society is willing to accept. But, our society does not have to define us. We are in the drivers seat now. What if we stay in that drivers seat for the rest of our lives and drive the life in the way we want to, define happiness the way you want to. Or redefine the sad reality of happiness where it is attached to some kind of attachment and possession.

It is not an unknown fact but thinking that our happiness is attached to something other than us is a misconception many of us have. We expect that getting to a certain point of success in life will make us happier or having a certain person in our life will make us happier. But that is just a perfect picture that our brain created to disguise us on being happy. Guess what, you get to that picture and start painting a new picture of happiness. You wanted to get your dream job thinking that would make you happier but once you get there you want a raise. The wants never stop, and so does the process of chasing happiness.

Learn to stay happy doing nothing, having nothing. Then and only then we will be happy doing something, having someone because we were happy with out them and we bring them to our life, add happiness on top of what we already have. That’s what I am also practicing these days. ‘Not chasing happiness’. I believe, gratitude and thankfulness toward what we already have in our life paves the path of ‘not chasing happiness’. Appreciating what we already have, rather than wandering on things we don’t, brings us that feeling of wholeness or the perfect picture that we are looking for. Yeah the perfect picture is here, right now. Where ever you are in your life, that is your perfect picture.

Last words, do not chase happiness because it is in right now and be happy doing nothing.

Love,