Life Journey 

In last one year we faced unprecedented disruption & upheaval when a smallest bug from remote corner of world, have reached all of us, we wondered in roller coaster as we saw life being reduced to mere numbers of dead in daily count, we wondered what’s life & it’s purpose. After lot of deliberation, came to conclusion that 

“Life is journey in pursuit of happiness”

How we define happiness keeps evolving with time as we grow. To start with as new born child just having our simple feed is happiness. As we grow it evolves into playing with toys, siblings, friends, games before taken over by studies career, relationships etc.

We keep chasing our evolving happiness & things attached to it. At certain point of time or stage of life we realise that we have all the things we ever thought could make us happy but we still aren’t. This sudden realisation is what some people associate it with mid life crisis as it usually coincides with the phase when people are usually settled in career/relationship by then to then realise that they still haven’t got what they were looking despite some of them having it all.

It takes time for realisation to dawn that we had been confusing contentment with the happiness all our life. Hence all the things we wanted & achieved got us happiness too but it’s not the same as we were looking for. And sudden realisation that contentment one can derive only & only from doing things for others. Hence we see many rich achievers, celebrities, businesses turning into philanthropy. We see many people start falling in love all over again too.

This ‘contentment’ is actually the same that makes news lovers euphorically high & new parent divinely blissful too. Just the thought of doing things for others, people we love in this case like lovers, kids, partners, friends, community & others, makes them connect to higher cosmic forces which had wired us evolutionarily. 

It’s the same evolutionary connect with fellow living beings that made humans evolve to present level of highly cognitive & physical advantage over other species on the planet.

It’s this simple innate thought of connecting & doing things for others which makes us humans evolve eternally for billions of years.

The blissful solace person finds when in love whilst doing things for others, sometimes becomes an oasis amidst the desert of tumultuous life & motivates them to move mountains they had thought it was immovable. Even the trials & tribulations of life seems futile in this journey of even pushing mountains.

Sometimes this euphoric bliss feeds arrogance too in our complex brain wiring making us vulnerable to the thought that being the person in love I have moved mountains for the loved ones & degrading our love/lovers subconsciously by turning it into like a business transaction or even making it a charity. This simple misreading creates so much burden on divine relationship of love. The blissful confused charged up lover sometimes doesn’t pause to ponder that all the deeds as lover did, it made doer happy too eventually while doing those things for others. 

Sadly this avoidable treatable confusion leads people to destroy the very thing they loved the most & had invested all the times, efforts & energy when they start burdening the relationship by thinking/behaving that all they did for the other person was for other person & expecting return like a business transaction. It make things so harder for other person too putting further burden on strained relationships beyond the tensile strength testing it to breaking point sometimes 

The fellow lover probably wouldn’t have wanted other person to go extra mile or move mountains so hard at first place anyway.

The simple understanding that we do things to make other persons happy & it makes us happy too. The sustainable relationships do things that makes both happy & unsustainable ones starts putting strains. It can be avoided by expecting things in return, it human nature to expect but voluntarily making it that we are doing things for both happiness makes it nicer to both & saves many complications. 

When things don’t work out in relationships, some ppl make start getting bitter & usually one person claims that he/she did so much for others while others victimises as being used without being actually realising that they themselves are inflicting wounds on themselves. 

When one thinks that other person used them, they subconsciously degrade themselves as being so juvenile to get used. It understandable that sometimes things won’t work out sadly & when it doesn’t, isn’t it better to heal wounds quickly & healthily rather than inflicting it more making it gangrenous to carry the wound forever. At same time appreciating that doing things for others also one happy rather than a charity or business transaction degrading one self only. When one starts hating the other person, actually it isn’t directed at the other person but to one own self & that part of self which spent time with other investing into relationship. This self hate leads more trauma rather than the other person or relationship itself.

The modernity has strained negatively affecting the relationships with direct impact of institutions like marriages & families which then adversely affects communities & societies. 

Marriage is a construct to help individuals enrich each other, evolve & procreate in a harmonious rule based society. As any institution it needs to keep evolving to stay relevant with changing time. The way it reacts to change shall determine the future of this institution too which has survived so far & it’s interesting to see how it responds to this more rapidly paced evolving world. I hope it does & it can if people adapt accordingly.

We see people in midlife after realising all the things they chased for happiness failed to make them happy & do land up either trying something adventurous or fall in love to feel happy again doing things for others as they call it in the name of love. 

It’s not just the individuals but as cohort or society has the same divine urge to do things for others to seek same happiness & contentment. We are inherently wired for this & world needs this in this modern era especially when the success of medicine has increased life expectancy making us live longer & we needing more in our vulnerability/frailty 

All around us we see elderly frail family members or neighbours living all by themselves, managing complexities of life  dealing with relentless insurmountable loneliness while we also see many young, youth or middle aged small families dealing with life turning complex in young fast paced multi-dimensional challenges vulnerable phase of life too. 

Ironic that our problems & solutions lie so close to each other, sometimes next to the wall but the wall seems too tall to climb & the threshold of door higher than heights of Himalayas 

The younger youth either as solo or as family can get guidance from the elderly neighbour who had seen it all & the latter shall get someone to share life lessons with, helping them to deal with the worst ailment they suffer which no medicine or science can cure, the long oceanic relentless long loneliness. This simple adjustment can make the positive life changing experience for all parties involved. This connect & sharing shall not only help each other symbiotically as unit but also the community & society as cohort. The isolated units can turn into the lively ecosystem of multiple symbiotic individuals seeking happiness & contentment while enriching each other, the real purpose of relationships, partnerships, cohorts, communities, societies, nations & planet Earth

It shall enrich not only individuals or units but whole society. Apart from making people happy & contented, it’ll reduce the healthcare & social care needs replacing it with more real meaningful human connect. 

So if this simple sounding solution can have this profound impact then it’s important to consider what stopped us so far & why do we inherently caring connecting humans land up breaking the things we value most.

As with humans evolution the world around us keeps changing us too. The change of pace in last half century has been very astronomically fast paced & probably never ever seen by us humans ever before since we migrated millenniums ago to settle in ethnic origins. The human migration & connecting with very diverse cohort at this extent is the very new phenomenon seen first time only in the last century.

The many technological advances starting form travel by air, to then Information Age with internet shrinking the world in our palms now has transformed planet in such a short span of time. The success of medical science in extending the life expectancy have changed the whole meaning of relationships we don’t actually acknowledge. The historically most romantic phrase ‘And they lived happily ever after’ has different meaning during Roman life expectancy of 25yrs or ‘Dead at Forty’ pre-Industrial life expectancy or now when life expectancy touches >70 yrs. at most places on the planet. 

The family or society as institution has changed so much with thankfully massive reduction in infant or child mortality rate.

Industrialisation has made humans lot more mobile with jobs & career opportunities making us interact with probably more than hundred times more  than we did before. 

This proliferation fuelled growth has changed businesses too with the advent & reliance on media, advertisement & entertainment industry. 

The media & advertisement industries weaves a fantasy about their products or ideas in this newly interactive insecure world who’s newly integrating in very diverse world. 

There is an underlying discomfort too as world hasn’t yet healed the wounds inflicted from the trauma of horrific inhuman crimes fed by human greed to dominate in forms of invaders & colonisers during last millennium. Subconsciously it’s has made people uncomfortable in their identities. It keeps people defensive & unsure of how to break the ice creating political correctness. 

This political correctness is meant to control the volatile undercurrent but ironically this political correctness fuels it even more. The conversations, discussions & exchange of ideas are the most fundamental parts of relationships. If this vital ingredient is missing even in most strong or stable relationships e.g blood relationships i.e parents, siblings even then the relationships can break down easily. But to expect diverse cohorts to integrate as part of society with political correctness is tricky. 

The political correctness kills the conversation by building the invisible tall walls between cohorts leading to ghettoisation. People in modern societies interact but don’t integrate because of this political correctness.

We develop our perspective about things around us right from very early infancy & childhood. By the time we actually exercise our perspective in relationships & the world around us, its gets out of the date in this rapidly changing world. Our perspective lags by a generation usually & it was barely noticeable in the evolutionary past but in this fast changing world it’s very apparent making us uncomfortable. The marriage is an institution which has felt most ripples in high tides of change. Society is still in analytical phase about how it would respond to the winds of change.

The advertisement media industries market peoples vulnerability & insecurity creating easy tag-lines appealing by generating fantasy, raising unrealistic expectations & unachievable demands even from relationships. e.g ‘Love me the way I am’ Get me the moon etc 

Is it pragmatic & practically realistic that lovers love each other like adage ‘Just the way they are’? Had it been the case that nothing would or could change dynamics but we know it does & it does change so frequently which cannot be explained just be sheer chance. It’s possible that we are creating impossibly unachievable expectations either from others or relationships subconsciously against the laws of nature. 

To make people believe in fantasy of Prince Charming or perfect mermaid princess is akin to make them believe in Superman Spider-Man & then them jumping from skyscrapers, is it why expectations & relationships crash too 

Does ‘loving people just the way they are’ makes the relationships stronger or by accepting, adjusting & accommodating accordingly makes relationships respectful to make it stronger too. It’s fundamental & foundational that both understand the basic laws of nature, most relationship can still be work if one gets it & other adapts to the acceptable work 

We all adapt, accommodate & adjust all the times in every other relationships mostly subconsciously even in the strong relationships we are born with but when it’s about our relationship with partner’s the word & especially media makes the adjustments & accomodation as something negative. It’s again about the expectations from ‘Accept me as I’m’!! 

The nature is most powerful, the forces responsible for Big Bang are beyond our comprehension & if we ignore the natural laws then we are just just hurting ourselves. The forces of nature are far too strong & ignorant of our emotions. 

The seismic forces of earthquakes & hydraulic forces of floods destroys killing even infants & mothers ruthlessly. The nature has no emotions. 

Everything in nature follows natural laws & one of the law is that many things happens in life/nature without any laws. We can call it as chance & some call it luck, destiny or any divine force they identify with or believe in. 

Many things happen by chance including when people meet, they meet by natural occurrences of chance or destiny. The planetary forces influence as like gravitational forces, the moon which can set tides in massive oceans & same planetary forces can affect the more than half 60% water composition of our body as negative or positive energy.  Coincidentally most chances are benign with out much affect & some chances are positive, hence we don’t take much notice. 

But as just by chance & proportions, some of the chances would turn out to be negative too, that’s when we start overthinking too much making our lives too complicated & miserable.

We all underestimate the occurrence & value of chance. There are > 100 billions planets & the existence of life on our blue planet Earth is by mere chance. We are cruising our journey on this planet Earth & in this journey we meet along other fellow travellers, some we get along, some we don’t & some we get along till we evolve or thing change by chance. It’s all natural but we tend to overthink complicating & in process hurting ourselves.

As per most fundamental law of nature we are the bundle of energy traversing our journey on planet Earth & the people we meet are our fellow travellers. We get on with our journey with the travellers we get along with when our paths converge & part when it diverges. We develop our egos to protect ourselves like antibodies but sadly it turns like auto-antibodies hurting the very thing it’s meant to protect.

The world has seen the biggest global natural disruption very recently & now gradually recovering from COVID virus after we are developing our immunity with antibodies. We have seen quarantine, look downs, mutations, immunity & all the natural phenomenons following laws of nature. The regular disruptions helps our evolution by shaking things & particles at regular intervals to help them settle into newer order & hopefully better one. When we are cruising normally & even though the particles seems stable or stationery, but the same particles are & stay in constant array. This array when hits critical momentum & overcomes the inertia, it causes disruption which shakes things to helps them settle into newer order to keep in line with evolution.

As the world order evolves into better evolved up-to date order & chaos settles after we witnessed huge disruption in last centre, it’s also the time for us to make sure we overcome our inertia & disrupt our egos to achieve our happiness, the real contentment. Are we ready to evolve for our subsequent journey & can we strive for our happiness, the meaningful contentment for each other.