Daily Times

What is life all about, is a question all philosophers have pondered. Even lesser minds, like mine can wander down behind great ones, in search of understanding, if not truth.

I was in my early teens when I first read that fascinating document; the American Declaration of Independence. Even then its beauty of thoughts, words, and lucid expression were self-evident. But it took years before I began to appreciate its true worth.

In my first reading, I failed to understand why, in the very first sentence, the fundamental rights of mankind of life and liberty had to include The Pursuit of Happiness. Nor did I understand why happiness would ever need to be pursued.

Many years later, on my first reading of Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness, I suddenly realised that, in fact, the sole purpose of life was happiness and/or satisfaction. But satisfaction also leads to happiness.

If we pray for guidance, forgiveness or as a matter of course, we place ourselves at the mercy of a deity and should be content that our fate is now in safe hands.

For those in pursuit of wealth, success, or power, also sought to find happiness; if success fails to bring happiness, perhaps he/she sought the wrong means to the ultimate end.

It was then that I recalled the Declaration of Independence and read it again. And then it was, that I realised that happiness is too important to life for man to merely wait for it to come to him. It has to be pursued. The true profoundness of Thomas Jefferson’s wisdom began to dawn on me.

The more vigorously it is pursued, the more rewarding the feeling when it is found. This realisation led to another reading of Russell’s treatise. This time, more carefully and very slowly. I wanted to digest it.

I suddenly realized that this was, perhaps the most important read of my life.

As important as pursuing and reveling in happiness is the importance of shedding unhappiness. It has a way of clinging to those who find it. Later in life I was to learn, to my sorrow and regret that people can revel and cling to unhappiness as well.

Russell’s intellect is no less awe inspiring than Jefferson’s. It was from him that I learnt the importance of ambition in human life. Without ambition a human is incomplete and can never be happy. To have ambition and realise it, is the greatest reward for any human; the greatest source of satisfaction and happiness.

But for that very reason, ambition can also be a curse.

Everything that one gets in life extracts a price. If one’s ambition is to succeed at any cost; succeed you may, but it may not be as rewarding as ambition that is qualified.

After all, no human can be the best. There is always someone, somewhere who is better. If so, then the pursuit of happiness by seeking to be the best is doomed to fail or, success will be at a price that makes success an ugly achievement; an unrewarding one.

If ambition is to do your best; your own best, that is the ultimate achievement. That you return satisfied that the task(s) you performed that day, could not have been better done by you; you may be among the happiest people on earth.

On the other hand, envy, greed and hate are emotions that may feed ambition but are obscene emotions. They chew into your inner being and steal happiness. In all my years, I have never come across a single supposedly successful being who rose to his/her heights powered by any of these emotions.

It is in this context that I discovered another amazing fact. The vast majority of those who profess to believe — and this belief is not qualified by a religion, are unhappy and unsatisfied.

One would think that a believer of conviction would naturally be a fatalist; one who has put his destiny in the hands of whichever deity he/she believes in and will be happy with whatever comes his/her way. But, that is not what usually happens.

There are always inspirational people like Abdus Sattar Edhi. A giant among pygmies in any crowd of the world. Rolling in wealth but content to live simply and to dedicate his life to helping others. A human angel.

There is Mother Theresa. And others of all religions, color, caste or creed content with what life has dealt them ungrudging. But they come few and far between.

Ironically and shamefully for mankind, the bulk of these are found among the very poor. Those who barely eke out a living. They will be most free in sharing a very humble and meager meal; while those with plenty will let food rot, but not share it. And, if they do, it will be distributed as largesse; not shared.

I digress; but not too far.

Happiness is too important not to be actively sought, pursued, and reveled in. To be happy, man must be ambitious; but only if the competitiveness of this ambition is with your own person.Lessons I took a long time learning but attempted to pass on to my children; and now to my grandchildren. Wish me success and happiness.

The writer is a retired soldier with pretensions of being able to think