A LONG WALK TO HAPPINESS: Replacing virtual with real happiness -By Alivionote Edwin

Edwin Alivionote

The need for a happy life has led to the creation of several schools of thoughts on what makes a person live a happy life. An average woman wants to be happy, that’s all she will ask for and seeks. For a man, his source of happiness lies in the fulfillment of his dreams. The collectiveness of what makes us happy and sad isn’t in our genes but is more attached to the forces that are in contact with us in our environment. Many sort to be free, as happiness they feel lies in your degree of freedom. Those who say ‘I own my life and can do what I feel like with it’ are the architect of this ideology but ‘freedom’ as we know makes us wild and untamed. For Nelson Mandela the prison walls made a great impression of isolation and loneliness, so he saw the essence for his book of 1995 ‘Long walk to freedom’.

We live in a time when happiness is associated with economic fortunes. But rewind 50-years back and tell me if our parents who benched happiness on communism were not happier. At least, most of us grew up with both our parents still married unless for loss of spouse by fate. The grand quest for happiness more like flu is a trend that has ignited men and women, boys and girls alike. In the frenzy search for happiness we see the need to get money which is believed to buy us all that happiness will demand. But as we look for more money we lose our close ones to impress those we don’t even know. We find ourselves cooking up our reality; that we are contented with our achievements even if we don’t have the pleasure of feeling safe around them because we feel an inner gap of hurt and emptiness.

Never in time do we have so much talk about true love than now, but I fear daily, that love will someday become a myth, since sacrifice as a lifestyle is phasing out of human existence. The whole essence of friendship has been abused by many if not all, as we would say ‘a friend in need is a friend in deed’. But more often than none, we are fond of being friends in crimes, friends with benefits and friends by circumstances. Gone are the days when a friend was your role model, mentor, counselor and adviser. There is even a far noxious mentality that happiness is aligning with the crowd (everybody is doing it). We meet as pals often, only to discuss others and not ourselves as if we on our own have attained perfection. A friend watches your back and makes you foresee what you are blind to by addiction, especially the things that men will refer to as necessary evils.

The crime of the average 21^st century adult is this; ‘we think we are happy’ when ‘we should know that we are happy’. Please to corroborate this please sing the Nursery song- we are H.A.P.P.Y… it ends with the lines… we know we are, we are sure we are. If you think you are happy, it is virtual happiness then, when you know you are happy it is real happiness. Maybe knowing the symptoms of unhappiness will help you probe the facts underneath. They include among others

• Unwillingness to be alone and think

• Being happier with strangers than people you know

• Long lasting anger on menial provocation

• Feeling of the worthlessness often

• Live a life of levity (I don’t give a damn)

• Insecurity complex

• Suspicion syndrome

• Difficulty to trust including one’s instincts

• Constant fear to act

Little wonder we claim this generation is happier for its feat of achievement and modernity yet we have more cases of suicide, divorce, boredom, hostility you name the others. In truth, the word happiness is more symbolic in giving than expectancy. It deals more with what you can’t see tomorrow than with what you can feel and touch today. Our parents who have the privilege of birthing us had the onerous responsibility to teach us about knowing ourselves better so that groomed to adulthood; we can confidently tell what make up our happiness itineraries. It is possible to be a friend with someone for years and yet have no clue what he/she represents, stand for as well as his/her affiliated philosophy of life and ideology. Under this context, friendship these days can be likened to having no contributory role towards enhancing a happier life for us. The question is, how can I impact/Improve someone if I don’t know how he/she is wired. Seemingly, companionship is mostly programmed by greed to last for the moment because sooner a new direction is sorted and we have overstayed our welcome.

A man once asked the wife – what do I stand for as far as you know me? And the wife in response said you stand for anything under skirt. That was how far she knew the man she calls her hobby. Real happiness is not a right as many expect, we pay a price to earn it and it might take longer than you anticipate to radiate and become obvious that you’ve got true happiness. Youths grow up learning nothing about life from mentors and secret books which are available to us almost at no cost than affordable price. We nurture a sense that we shall learn when we get there; almost like saying I will learn how to shoot at the war front.

Now the big dilemma is, does personal happiness thrive in personal riches or the league of people who constitute your friends and relations. There is no need to fake your reality, the truth remains that, the more self aware one is, the more one understands how to juggle his/her mood towards being happy. Happiness isn’t real if it is not a lasting one thus; longevity of happiness is what we should aim. But sad enough most people know a lot about everything but take no notice of themselves (self-awareness) and don’t even spare time to afford a listening ears to what people say/preach concerning them. Listening will bring some sincere truth about the limitations to trim, so you can be the best you can. Now, no matter what people say of you, they have a way of modeling your life to what you shall become but be cautious least you are inspired in the wrong path. In some cases you get to notice the impact of how they trigger the adjustment while in other cases you don’t feel the change because it is subliminal.

Like the economics say about want, happiness is relatively insatiable and is something we groom all our lives. I will buttress with the story line; A small boy of 8 who lives in an estate was busy playing with his expensive prado jeep toy up the balcony of a duplex. Sooner, he became tired and paused staring down at a girl almost his age who was engaged with mud, playing freely up and down the street. He admired the freedom she had, for she was the daughter of a man who sells in the kiosk across the estate street way. Suddenly he became gloomy with sadness, knowing he will always be up there protected by iron bars, tall walls with barbed wires and a remote sensor gate. The girl who at this time began looking upwards to this kid stopped her play and starred at him with downcast imagination of her background. She knew her dad could never afford such toy in a billion years, she thought she was the little queen of the lonely estate street and she had no issue with freedom of movement but then, she had no right to owing anything of value. These are kids expressing their unhappy status which of course is short span.

My fear is not about unhappy kids scenarios because they have all the chance to adjust their status. But adults with the pedigree to sustain an entire life filled with virtual happiness are my worry and concern. A life where the most part of our existence, we pretend to be happy, is a threat to our conscious health. We owe ourselves duties as friends, acquaintances and family, to stand for each other at our weak moments. It is sad indeed to know the weakness we exhibits most often are not corrected by persons who watch us soar in them amounting to building a pyramid of unhappiness with the support of those we call our own, who are too scared to caution us. In our time, hardly do we get persons who are courageous to loss a friend for the right reasons until such a time when they become aware that we acted in their interest. For some instances seem right in the short-run and becomes obviously wrong in the long run. Not all fingers are equal, some persons can see wrong clearly as being wrong today while others need more time to see it that way. So, it is absolutely possible to love your enemies and hate your friends. This happens because at some instances, your enemies appear like your friends while your friends look like your enemies am very conscious of semantics here.

Happiness is not magic nor is it a miracle, it is the fruit of much sacrifices. Though, I will not deny the effect of wealth and affluence on happiness but this is relative and surely leaves less to be desired if you get to probe instances of money induced happiness. Hence, be careful when you wish for happiness (real and long lasting) because it simply means you are willing to be many things that will bother around temporal discomfort, giving rather than receiving, forgiveness, sacrifice for the good of others etc.

The dividend of happiness is huge and evolving, a happy person finds it easier to get back to normal from anger and hurt. A happy person fears less and trusts more, encourages others with ease and heals three times faster when sick. A happy person will easily reason a way out of a confusing situation and is more prone to making the right decision. The son of a bachelor is also the son of a bitch is a coinage I use to psychologically imply that, for anyone who wants to get a kind of treatment from others should also try to portray same first. If you want to be happy, just make others happy for all you care, then they will make your happiness their responsibility. A ‘honnie’ that knows what a ‘hommie’ needs to be happy will go all out to make the man achieve his ambition and when he finds you a central role to his success, you will become that woman that seats beside a successful man and remember, all a woman needs is to be happy, and what better happiness can she demand than to seat beside success.

There is a need for our society to facilitate the generation and propagation of real happiness and nip the spread of virtual happiness in the bud. I am very sure the truth of this topic will dawn on us when we are confronted with the question- Are you happy?

Some will answer yes quickly only for their minds to make a humble request- are you sure?

Some will pause and mutter I think so, while they battle to be sure of the response given

Some will say we bless God for I know he has given me a reason to be happy

For the last group I’d say, you don’t need a reason to be happy, you should ensure you’re happy and when a reason comes, you celebrate the reason with a heart that has come to know continuous happiness.