the key to finding happiness - from a 15 year old's perspective

     There's a theory I've read about which is based on the principle that since the Big Bang, the amount of matter present in the universe remains constant. And so when people die and, inevitably, others come to life, they are like a cocktail of those present before them, a wonderful blend of about a million people's characters, traits and personalities. The glittering dust of a thousand dying stars embeds itself into their veins, the twinkling galaxies and cosmos swirling in their bones. Their eyes resemble those of the ones they loved in a past life, and their cheeks are as soft as someone's favourite teddy bear. Unfortunately, we can never meet these people whose existence has had such a lasting impact on us, for we have no way of knowing just how much we are affected by the survival of those around us. However, we can take comfort in the fact that someday, the essence of who we are will be incorporated into someone else's being, and will inevitably be an essential component of their core. So most people must wonder...after being such complex, erratic, wonderful creations - why do we find it so hard to be happy and fulfilled?

    Society often forces us to believe that happiness comes from achieving a goal. Our minds are conditioned to restrict our joy, to preserve it for when we accomplish something 'worthy' of our bliss. Hence, we spend our lives forever chasing after certain aspirations. Happiness is perceived as a reward for accomplishing a certain task. 

    I, unfortunately, have also been victim to such a line of thinking. Time and time again, I hounded after fulfillment by endlessly seeking academic, athletic and social validation. 

'You can go out and enjoy yourself once you've earned it by doing well in this test,' I would tell myself. 

'Now that you've done well, there's no time to enjoy yourself because you have to maintain those results and make everyone around you proud.'

I'll be honest - this mentality did get me the outcome I desired. But at what cost? The academic accolades and impeccable test scores piled on my desk, gleaming with their potence. My friends grew apart from me as I laboured, frantically, to be worthy in this aspect. To be well-behaved, admirable, decent and noble like the women I read about in the books I buried myself in. To finally be someone worthy of everyone's approval. Someone worthy of my own happiness. I immersed myself so deeply in this pursuit of excellence that somewhere along the line, I lost sight of who I was and what I wanted to be. I attempted so ferociously to be beautiful, intelligent and formidable that I became an empty shell of the person I used to be and suddenly, I found myself hopelessly alone. The mirror became my worst enemy, and my desk became my own personal prison. My headphones formed an essential aspect of my self-inflicted solitude and I donned them constantly, shielding myself from the utter mundanity around me. The pressure to be different, to be sharper and more equipped than everyone around me heightened, and in a matter of moments, it became an expectation. And even though I was exhausted, burnt-out, and cast adrift, I forced out the smiles and retreated even further within my thoughts. 'This is what is expected of you,' I told myself. 'This is what everyone else manages to accomplish so effortlessly'. 

But by far the biggest lie I fed myself was that I would finally gain the happiness and contentment I had been working towards achieving, after my board exams got over. At last, I would be able to shed the stress and weight of all these expectations I had placed upon myself. But after a few days, when the initial euphoria of my new-found freedom wore off, I found myself consumed with even more fear and anxiety. I woke up at noon, wandered aimlessly, fell back asleep, itched, burned, for some sort of feat to accomplish, some accolade to achieve that could convince me once again that I deserved to enjoy myself and that I was different from every other teenager slacking off on vacation. I buried myself in a mound of novels, refused to leave the house, downloaded more textbooks, and devoted all of my time to feverishly annotating them, agitatedly scrawling notes in the margins. But it wasn't enough. Nothing would ever be enough. All of a sudden, I was forced to face the possibility that I was terrifyingly average. Terrifyingly ordinary. The world as I knew it came to a standstill, and it has taken days of careful introspection for me to figure out that the solution comes in romanticising the mundane. 

Now, I know what you're thinking - finding happiness in the ordinary? That's it? 

That was how I felt initially too. However, the four month vacation that came with transitioning from an ICSE to an IBDP curriculum offered me the opportunity to explore this idea - or rather, to exploit it and gain some much-needed contentment. 

This summer, I swore to be gentle with myself - to bloom quietly and silently, surrounded by the things and people I loved. It started with a trip to Sri Lanka, where the roar of salty sea waves hummed in my ear as they crashed across my feet, indenting the soft sand. It continued with a trip to Bangalore, where time seemed to slow as I relished warm, home-cooked food and played with my dog in the rain. It persisted with a visit to Singapore for a summer camp, where I met the most wonderful people and had experiences I'll never forget, filled with good food, cozy cafes, midnight grocery runs and late-night study sessions. 

But it didn't end there. And I don't think it ever will.

These past few weeks, I've realised that my purpose in this world is not to make ground-breaking discoveries, revolutionise mechanisms or work relentlessly - it is to simply be. I can sleep soundly knowing that I deserve to feel happy whenever I see a funny name in the spice aisle of the grocery store, or when my friend cracks a silly joke. I deserve to enjoy experiences, live moments and love people without having to think of them as rewards for accomplishing something. I deserve to not feel guilty for simply taking up space, offending others with my opinions, or being myself - I deserve to romanticise the mundane. 

Isn't it glorious how something as simple as a rainy night with a book and a mug of hot chocolate soothes something inside you? How the moisture glistening on forest-green tree leaves, and the radiance of pink flowers peeking out from the soil for a glimpse of the sun brightens up your day? You can see so much peace and beauty in the world around you, and all you need to do is open your eyes. The love and affection you pour into the world around you will always make its way back to you, and the only thing you need to do is try. You are beautiful, terrible, wild, decadent, poetic - utterly dynamic in nature and capable of wonderful things such as love as well as perilous, repulsive things such as fury. The secret to embracing your existence is to delve into the core of your humanity and savor the world around you before it's too late. Before you know it, the storm will pass and the daisies will blossom, and life will move on the way it always inevitably does. 

Love always,

Sneha

p.s - here are some images of my summer !  :P

mail blissfulbarfi@gmail.com for any inquiries or questions!