Needs and Happiness

Is it possible to be happy and at the same time enjoy the things what life has to offer? For some people, being successful and wealthy is being happy. For some people, living a contented life is being happy. Can they both be right? I like to clarify what I mean by happiness. I am not meaning happiness as temporary fun or laughter that we have. What I mean is a state of sustained and comfortable well-being – some kind of easiness with life.

I believe that a state of sustained happiness can be achieved if we live a life of low needs, or if we have the capability to fulfill our needs on a sustained basis. I am using needs in a generic sort of way. Needs is anything that is a difference between what you have and what you want. Needs can be things like material needs – house, car etc, people needs – relations, behaviour etc, capability needs – education, skills etc, entertainment needs etc.

It is obvious to most of us that fulfillment of our needs leads to satisfaction and happiness. We work hard to realize our needs and dreams in hope that increased fulfillment of needs increases satisfaction and happiness. I believe it is partially true. But it does not guarantee sustained happiness.

Mathematically, sustained happiness can be found if the difference between what you want and what you have is zero or as close to zero, for each moment that you are living. Let me try to explain.

For this, I have to go back to my observations with nature. I like to trek and spend time in the nature. I like the peace that nature has to offer. Most wildlife are at complete peace with their surroundings. Most animals have few needs - food and love. They have fear as well - fear of being killed or fear of incapability to meet their needs. Most of the needs and fears that wildlife has is unconscious and therefore they have little control over them. The good thing is that they enjoy life fully with keen and alert sensory perceptions. Thinking has given control over our instinctual needs and fears. But, we have replaced instinctual needs and fear with a set of mind created needs and fear.

In humans, spiritual people have a life with less thinking and are aligned with nature. Their life is at ease. They have created for themselves an environment of low needs. Once the environment of low needs is created, most of the best practises that spiritual people follow as way of life comes naturally. But living a spiritual life in the current context is not a viable option for most people. Because most people like to enjoy the good things that the world has to offer. It is a valid need and choice.

So, we have decided to have needs, build capability and progress in life by fulfilling our needs. Our hope is that all our needs and dreams will be satisfied and hence we will happy on a sustained basis at a later point of time. Again, very few people have done this successfully. As we start fulfilling our needs, we start to accumulate new needs. And hence, there is always a gap between what we have and what we want. In our quest to fill the gap, we widen the gap with all our thinking.

So what is the solution? This brings us to the topic of needs again. Most of our needs and dreams are created at the time of growing up. This happens because we let impressionable things accumulate as needs in our unconscious self. As we are exposed to different things in life, our needs or dreams can intensify or increase based on our capability to fulfill them.
If we are living in an environment where needs can be fulfilled, we fulfill our needs and get increasing satisfaction. The satisfaction and happiness is usually short-lived because we find exposed to new needs.

If we are living in an environment where fulfillment of needs is not possible, we may be frustrated and over time gradually reduce our needs and find greater satisfaction and happiness over time.

In any case, when we are old, where fulfillment of new needs is not possible, we are generally content with what we have and find great satisfaction and happiness.

How can we prevent new needs from being created consciously? Usually, needs are created because we are impressed by the beautiful things the world has to offer, and we imagine the comfort that those things have to give. And we assume that ownership of those things can guarantee happiness. It is sufficent to appreciate such things without needing to own them. It is true for material things, relationship, or capability. Most people get uncomfortable when they are exposed to the things that they truly admire or things that they dislike. So, they usually develop a comfortable environment where they are not exposed to such things.

How can we work on fulfilling our needs and at the same time be happy? Happiness automatically exists when needs are fulfilled or if you do not have any needs. So, it is better that we do things in such a way that we do not keep reminding ourselves of the need. This can be done if we are doing activities that we enjoy doing. When we enjoy doing something, we generally are involved in the activity. Similarly, non-enjoyable activities are things that we do because we have to do to satisfy our needs. The more non-enjoyable activities that we do, the more we are aware of the need, and more dissatisfaction occurs.

If we fulfill a need by doing non-enjoyable activities, we have some amount of fear of losing the object that we owned because we did things that we did not like. So, if we lose it, we have to do it again. Fear is another thing that prevents sustained happiness. If you do things that you enjoy and if you do not believe in owning things, you do not have fear of losing it.

When we are born, we had instinctual needs and fears. As we grow old, we have replaced it with our own needs and related fears. We have also done activities that we are completely at ease and activities that we do not like. When you realize that low needs can bring greater satisfaction, we cannot wish away those needs. It takes time and conscious prioritization. When we realize that some non-enjoyable activities are require to fulfill our needs, we have a choice to convert it to something doable with lesser pain. But again accepting non-enjoyable activities and converting it to activities that you enjoy takes time and techniques.

Is there a known recipe to live life? Is there a set of well-defined procedures that if you do can lead to sustained happiness? The answers is something that you have to find for yourself.
Our needs vary based on our exposure and genetics. So, it is good to be aware of our needs. In my opinion, it is not a good idea to visualize your need, imagine your need or verbalize your need, because that intensifies the need. A mere casual awareness is sufficent.

As we go through life, we find activities that we enjoy doing and we are comfortable doing. The key is to fill up our time with good enjoyable activities. At work, it is better to plan out enjoyable activities. At home, it is better to find time for enjoyable activities. By enjoyable activities, I do not mean something done for pleasure or something to satisfy an entertainment need. But something, where you are completely at ease with yourself.

Then understand the non-enjoyable activities that you are doing the to fulfill a need. It is better to do it with atmost presence. Because if you have good presence, you can not only do it faster, but also, you do not feel the non-enjoyment in that.

It is good to explore doing new activities and testing our comfort levels, and whether we can enjoy it. By increasing our activities that we thoroughly enjoy, we create more choices for good living.

At the same, try to weaken your need. You may not be materialistic, but you way want the right behaviour from people or the right environment to work in. It is better to do away with such needs, if possible.

As you fulfill your needs by doing activities that you enjoy, and also weaken your need by not thinking about it, you are reducing the need gap – what you want and what you have. As it approaches zero, you can live a life of greater fulfillment and satisfaction.

Remember to work with yourself than follow the world. Your needs are not the same as others. What you enjoy is not what others enjoy. Best practises offered may not work for you. Do not convert your happiness as a need. Happiness will follow if you feel lesser need gap on a sustained basis.

The final tip to "the art of living" – Be aware of your needs and fulfill it by doing enjoyable activities. Consciously reduce your unnecessary needs. Do non-enjoyable activities with more presence. Happiness and peacefulness will follow.