The pain of joy

Whenever I see signs of happiness, I suspect danger at hand. That leads me to seek reasons to "come down". I see danger in being happy because that can't be lasting.

Whenever I see signs of happiness, I suspect danger at hand. That leads me to seek reasons to "come down". I see danger in being happy because that can't be lasting. And one can be wiser when one is down to earth and the feelings of joy can only take one off the path of being reasonable.

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That is why Pascal had a good reason to exclaim that every heart has to have its own ‘ache'. The ‘ache' works like a break when you are at a dangerous turn.

Happiness is an illusion; and as Aeschylus put it, "Call no man happy till he is dead." That is because, in the words of Thomas Fuller, "What a day may bring, a day may take away."

It is normal to be happy and joyous when good things happen. But I have learnt to live with pain more comfortably as that seems to be more constant.

Success, one of the dynamics of happiness, should make one wiser and humbler, because any success that one gets is not because of his own hard work alone; a hundred external factors too have contributed to one's success. You need to be grateful to all those known and unknown ‘contributors' who have guided/led you to a stage that you call success.

Nature has a tendency to "prepare the ground ready" for you if you are sincere and hardworking in whatever goal you have. And one must know one's limits and internal and external factors that may come as help or hindrance in one's way.

That is why it is said the best way to know one's real potential is to test one in adverse circumstances. Adversity makes one come out stronger and realistic in approach. No wonder, it is said, God throws men into deep waters, not to drown them but to make them realise their true nature.

A man on trial each morning has less suffering each evening. In other words, one must always keep in mind what Rabindranath Tagore had said, "Pleasure is frail like dewdrops; while it laughs, it dies."