In the pursuit of happiness.

When looking for happiness in life, We usually think of the grand visions of life goals and big things that we should achieve in order to ‘find' that thing called happiness.

It’s not a wrong way of thinking. It’s intuitive even. That’s the way we’ve been taught to think from school.

You have been given a problem-(aka be happy)- you find a solution (do the big thing, buy the fancy thing, get fit, find a romantic partner, get high on weed?, Watch the next best Netflix show, and/or follow the million other ways the world tells you how to be happy!)

I’m very much the same. When I first realised something was not exactly ok, I figured it’s because I’m not making money, so then I did that. It didn’t help, so I would plan the next big thing-

But guess what? That little gap between me and the thing called happiness remained the same. Infact it even widened over time. This was super perplexing, and eventually made me go full depressed.

That’s the problem, we keep running to find a way to solve things that are beyond our control. It’s a constant and desperate struggle to hold on to a version of reality that in actuality makes very little sense if you think about it.

But since that’s what is familiar, no matter how unhealthy it may be, we keep on recycling the toxic pattern forever.

So, what happens when you break down the reality that you’re trying to keep intact at all cost?

Something very interesting happens when you try to break that wall of pattern. You notice that most times, instead of looking for happiness, we are infact looking for distractions from sadness.

We smoke weed, drink alcohol, watch Netflix, or go to Goa — to avoid the one thing that we are so scared of- being alone with our thoughts.

We douse our minds with absolute chaos.

In order to look and feel 'normal' by whatever acceptable standards. We accept all the noise of reductive friendships, painful relationships, toxic attachments, and the list of bad habits that kills us slowly- all for the sake of being safely hidden from our own mind!

To stop the noise, remove distractions ruthlessly and find purpose.

Let me tell you about the people of Kanyasini village, which is hidden deep in the Himalaya.

I saw this old man weaving a basket the first thing in the morning when I woke up. An hour later, after I freshened up, had breakfast, I see him still at it, without moving an inch. The utmost focus with which he pursued his task, in the cold was intriguing.

I see many such examples of focused work through out Kanyasini village. From the sweet lady that makes woolen jackets, to the girl who knits a scarf with focus while trotting through the mountain roads which we had such a hard time trekking with our fancy sticks and costly shoes.

The question to ask here is, what is it that differentiates the city people and these villagers?

We are riddled with anxiety, stress, depression. We struggle to focus longer than a goldfish. I try to sit on my laptop and write this essay- I have distracted myself with several apps multiple times by the time I finish one sentence. Most people I know are this way. They are not always at fault. Everything in this world is designed to distract.

What makes the villagers so different, is that they don’t understand distraction. The old man wakes up and knows that his purpose (at that point of time) is to weave the basket. The sweet lady knows she has to make the woolen jacket for her kids.

Purpose + focused action = flow

Once they enter the zone, they work until their purpose, whatever it may be is fulfilled. The state of flow is when you become so immersed in a particular activity that you don’t know/can’t see anything else around you.

I tried to ask them how they live such a focused life, but it was not of much use. This is something inherent for the people of the village.

The closest i could get to understand their lives was by comparing it to the life of a river.

Rivers don't care who looks at it live, it lives it's Life, doing it's job consistently, without tiring, expecting no praise or expecting any want for attention.

life in the mountains are the same. mountain people don’t really give a shit about other’s opinion. they do their job, with honest hard-working mind. and they do it intuitively.

This constant mental travel to the state of flow by living a purpose driven lifestyle, is the anti thesis of what is otherwise considered normal in the city. Thus there could also be made a certain conclusion that such life, albeit simple- leads to immense peace and sometimes even happiness.

So the rhetoric has to be changed towards how, people of city are made to understand the importance and function of a purpose*deep focus driven lifestyle. And the fact that happiness infact is an outcome of this.