Yesterday during bus travel I heard an interesting conversation ... A dad was talking to his friend about his son .. He was telling that his son is not happy as his bed room is not having separate TV even when the parents have ... and the solution that man thought was "Let it be .. will buy him a new one .. few thousand more" .. I was amazed .. not because he was going to spend so much of money for the TV which may not be even used.. but because the father thought it easy to "buy" happiness for his son by shading off money .. Happiness was really costly here !!!
So my mind started thinking ... can we we buy happiness? may be yes ... should we buy happiness? may be yes ... but how far should we go to buy the happiness ? And should we first understand the real happiness someone wants ?
In the incident of TV ... why is son really needing a separate TV in his personal bedroom? Obviously because he is not getting enough of time from his parents and is looking for that company in the TV... To get this new TV, what will the parent do ? May be work a few hours more in the office to get better incentive or may go for tour to earn additional chunk ... effectively giving even further less time to the kid .. so is the son getting the real happiness and is effort taken by parent worth it ?
TV reminds me of my childhood, when there used to be one " black and white" TV per building than per room .... We all used to gather in the neighbour's house to see the TV. There used be a group of at least 15 to 20 people .. but no one felt it be crowd and enjoyed the movie together ... happiness did not need money then ..
Someone will say it was past .. gone are those days .... in today's world we must spend to get the happiness .. so thought to share one more incident ... Recently one evening when I was waiting on the Bandra Terminus for a cab, a poor family waiting for their late night train was relaxing around. The son was getting bored, so the dad took out a coin of 1 rupee and got him 2 chocolates .. The son was so happy and enjoyed eating the chocolate and playing with wrapper for nearly an hour ... happiness does not need much money now also !!!
During my "Art of Living" course they made to undergo an exercise, which many felt to be stupid or funny... We were told to sit, closing our eyes and a half piece of grape placed on our tongues.... With closed eyes and focused minds we were told to taste the grape slowly. Some found it boring, but with a focused mind some enjoyed the taste more than ever with just half piece of grape. They were able to get the happiness which even a kg of grape eaten without focus could not have given in regular life ... shared this just to say .. even for happiness quality matters than quantity ...Happiness is priceless ... if we can classify the needs wants and luxuries and treat to them like that .. believe in quality of happiness than quantity .. we can get unlimited happiness for free ... :)
