Rediscovering your true self: The path to lasting joy

When I drop my twenty-one-month-old daughter, Athyasaa, off at playschool, we walk for a few meters with the officegoers and share the lift until we enter the colorful school area. I am struck by what I observe.

The children who attend school come laughing, screaming, kicking their feet. My own tot has discovered the joys of using her vocal cords and uses them to the fullest extent during the five-minute walk from home to school. The tots hop, skip, and dance to school, pure bubbling joy evident in every moment.

A stark contrast to this is all the adults—adorning shirts, pants, long skirts, and suits—seeming to fit the adage, “Well dressed and always stressed!” Most of them look as if they have forgotten to smile. They seem restricted in their movements. In a hurry, always. Busy. With mobiles, or themselves. Most faces do not carry any joy.

These adults were once children who attended school. They were once happy. They were once carefree. They were once ready to burst into a song or a dance. And a smile… irrespective of who was watching and not just as a social exchange (or for a selfie), but as an expression of their heart. What then happened? When the little you became the big you, what got lost? What went so drastically wrong with our growing up? Shouldn’t our happiness have grown with us?

What Is True Happiness?

I sat with these questions and wanted to start by considering where to begin. Myself.

Was I happy? Largely yes. Sometimes, no. How did happiness feel within me? I smiled, invariably. Happiness felt like the sudden burst of sunshine at the nape of my neck on an otherwise chilly evening—causing gentle goosebumps across my scalp. It felt warm and homely, like golden butter and honey melting upon a toast. It felt like stargazing, lying on my back—relaxed and unhurried. It felt like a dance in the rain, carefree and buoyant. Sometimes, it even felt like a hug—every day, and yet so deeply comforting.

When was the last time I felt truly happy? Fortunately, just a few moments ago. When I was watching my daughter do her antics. (Ask yourself this question, dear friends, and some of you may be stumped to discover the answer and how long ago it was!)

What stopped me from feeling happy? Hmm… we were now venturing into uncomfortable crevices within me. But I wanted to keep going.

“I find myself experiencing deepest bliss where neither am I judging, nor being judged. In the presence of that best friend, with my child, being with my beloved guru or God, and in nature. These are times that I feel the most ‘me’—where I somehow slip out of my judging mode and slip into the bliss mode.”

My Two Biggest ‘Joy Blockers’

Instantly, two words popped up. Judgments and expectations. I realized, personally, for me, these were my biggest “joy blockers.”

As I dwelled deeper, I realized that growing up means having our judging intelligence well in place. It helps us decipher right from wrong, this from that, and enables us to make choices with respect to ourselves, others, and even Life. Judgments were needed. However, it is in becoming over-judgmental and using this faculty in every moment that moved me away from joy.

We judge ourselves, others, and the moment itself so much that nothing seems to be enough. We seem to keep falling short of who we should be. What others should be. And what Life should be. I remember recently going to my neighbor’s home and admiring her view, to which she instantly said, “This is nothing… you should have seen the sunset yesterday. Without the clouds, it was even more beautiful!”

And I realized, this is what we keep doing. Never really live in the moment, for all that it is worth. But rather keep clouding it with the judgment of the past, or future, or what we want it to be. This moves me away from true happiness, and I find myself experiencing the deepest bliss where neither I am judging, nor being judged. In the presence of that best friend, with my child, being with my beloved guru or God, in nature. These are times that I feel the most “me”—where I somehow slip out of my judging mode and slip into the bliss mode.

The other thing that prevented me from feeling happy was expectations and the burden that came with it. Expecting myself to be something other than what I am. Expecting Life to fit into my definition of it. Or to make moments what I want them to be, rather than what they are. And the big one that I think all of us face—expectations from people… to be what we want them to be, for them to treat us the way we expect, and whatnot!

Expectations, the word, and what comes with it is heavy. Truth be told, nothing but you are ever going to be in your control. Expecting more out of ourselves leads to growth, but overexpecting leads to stress. Expecting from the world or Life seems to be a fool’s errand. While we can keep asking, communicating, and hoping, what transpires is beyond our control.

Mastering Expectations

I realize that mastering expectations has been crucial to my growing sense of bliss. Expecting less from the world has helped me to find greater peace and quiet joy within me. Rather than expecting it to be a sunny day when I want it to rain, I have learnt to enjoy the rain for that day. Rather than expecting a person to be a certain way, I am learning to appreciate all the nuances in them and not expect them to be monochrome, as I certainly am not.

Every time my expectations quotient is low from the world, and reasonably good from myself, and when I meet it, I feel truest happiness. I am learning to use my expectations of myself to motivate me, but also to stop at the point where it starts stressing me. Even success or personal growth that comes without the quietude of joy is of little value, I have realized.

Happiness, I realize, as my concluding thoughts, is our very essence. It is who we were as children. It is the stuff our soul is made up of. We all have certain joy blockers—and if we can remove these, bit by bit, we discover the full-fledged force within us, and it fills everything we do. Life was always meant to be a wonder, we—a bubble of bliss floating through the cosmos, in this name, this form, this time frame. Let’s rediscover ourselves in our essence…