All love is expansion; all selfishness is contraction()

By Pratyush Parashar Das

Happiness is but a state of the mind, or so goes the popular saying. 

It is a conscious effort that must be expended almost constantly on a daily or even hourly basis because no plant can truly flourish or grow without a daily and healthy supply of water, sunlight, and air.

The definition of happiness varies from person to person, and there is no uniform definition that fits everyone. For example, let us consider three people, that is, namely, ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. ‘A’ happens to belong to a poor family of which ‘A’ is the sole breadwinner, and which has considerable debts to its name. ‘B’ hails from a middle-class family and is married, with two sons and one daughter; ‘B’ works as an assistant manager at a private security firm. ‘C’ is a scion of a reputable restaurant chain tycoon, and is currently learning the ropes of the business from ‘C’s father.

Let us now take into account their various definitions and meanings of happiness.

For ‘A’, happiness means being able to pay off ‘A’s family’s debt little by little every day, something which widens all of their smiles and enables them to sleep peacefully every night.

When we peek into ‘B’s life, then we see that for ‘B’, happiness means being able to provide for B’s family in the best way possible and occasionally taking them out for a film or for dinner at a respectable restaurant.

If you have so far been following the above statements, and the general trend of the varying degrees of happiness, then logically, it should be ‘’C who should be the happiest of all, right? After all, C has what ‘A’ and ‘B’ together do not, and many times over for that. Isn’t it? No, this is where all your calculations go haywire, for ‘C’ is the unhappiest person in the whole lot. It is simply because of the ’99 Club’, a term used for those individuals who always aspire for more despite having munificent resources, much like that man from children’s folktales who, upon discovering a pouch for 99 coins, always hankered after and brooded over the absence of the 100^th coin.

Indeed, despite having everything, ‘C’ is never truly content for ‘C’ always searches for that little extra or ‘100^th coin’ which ‘C’ believes will give ‘C’ true happiness.

The most obvious question now would be: ‘How does all of the above play out with respect to love?’ Well, the answer is more obvious and telling that most would be ready and willing to believe. Simply speaking, love is but the purest expression of a truly happy soul which is at peace with itself.

As people who are in love, or have been in love can tell you, love is something that makes one believe in oneself again and it is a feeling which changes a person in many ways and always for the better. It makes one more loving, more caring, more patient, and makes one love oneself even more. Though it does not change the world as it is, it certainly changes how one views it. For instance, referring to the earlier paragraphs, it can be said that though ‘A’ and ‘B’ appear to be relatively less-better off than ‘C’ they are quite obviously much happier than ‘C’ is, because, unlike ‘C’ they love what they do and do not go about searching for the ‘100^th coin’ because they are satisfied with who they are, and how they are, which is one of the surest hallmarks of love, be it outward or inward.

Indeed, it is solely due to the love that ‘A’ and ‘B’ bear for themselves and their families, and lives that enables them to grow as people, and to become better versions of themselves, which they can be and are truly proud of. Love helps both ‘A’ and ‘B’ to expand their boundaries as people.

However, when we do a rapid -turnabout and look at ‘C’, it appears to be a rather sorry state of affairs, for ‘C’ loathing of ‘C’s own prosperity (as oxymoronic as it sounds) and disdain for true content and satisfaction serve to make ‘C’ an individual who is unable to expand ‘C’s boundaries, because of ‘C’s selfishness which makes ‘C’ an unhappy individual who only focuses on what ‘C’ wants, instead of caring about others.

Thus, it can thus be said that 'All love is expansion; all selfishness is contraction’.

|| Om Shanti Shanti Shanti ||