PORT of call for HAPPINESS....

Each of us wants some peace and happiness in life. Still, happiness often evades us. “Is there a simple, straightforward road-map to get happiness and peace in life,”  ‘Reducing PORT is one of the ways’. PORT stands for Possessions, Obligatory Duties,Relationships and Transactions. How to reduce these?

Happiness is a state of mind; it does not come from possessions. There are severe limitations of happiness sought in place, things, beings, relationships, social status, financial status, situations, circumstances, conditions, environment, etc.

First, time, effort, money and some pain are involved in acquiring objects. Many waste their entire life in pursuit of desirable objects. There is no guarantee that even after getting those objects or positions, we would be happy.  Wemay feel ‘let-down’ after spending so much of time, effort and money. One may think, ‘this is not what I laboured for’.  Also, objects of desire keep changing, and so also our goal posts. The chase continues and   every new possession brings with it its own burden. If someone has a big house with swimming pool and ten bed rooms; imagine his plight in maintaining it. He is busy all the time cleaning, fixing, protecting. Does the house serve us, or do we serve the house? Again, objects make us dependent on them. Any kind of dependency is a cause of bondage and any kind of bondage is a cause of misery. For instance, once we are used to a particular standard of living, it is inconvenient not to have certain objects such as air conditioners in our life. Hence objects usually create bondage.

Relationships are meant to make our life happy. But do they? We have to maintain some blood relations for social cohesion, but we create other new relationships, which complicates life. Every new relationship has to be maintained. We have to remember to wish people on their birthdays and anniversaries or else they will take offence, participate in functions like marriage and engagement, or reach out in case of sickness or loss. Also we experience sadness or pain when the person with whom we have a relationship does not reciprocate. It is said that grief is never caused by outsiders or unknown people. It is caused by people with whom we have a relationship. Depending on our attitude, our relationships might cause us more pain than pleasure. The thing or being to which we are most attached will be the cause of our biggest misery in life.

Every possession and every new relationship creates its own obligatory duties. We have to insure our vehicles, for example, remember to send it for regular service. Similarly we have to attend to the expectations of relationships. These add to our list of obligatory duties. We cannot avoid basic, minimum obligatory duties towards the office, business, parents, spouse or children. But our optional duties also become obligatory when we maintain too many possessions and relationships.

We should also be careful in accepting new roles in life just for the sake of ego-satisfaction. If we are made President/ Secretary/member of a Society/village/city, we may feel good, but that adds to our obligatory duties also. Performance of each of these duties becomes a transaction. This way we try to cope with a large number of transactions in our life, and get exhausted at the end of the day. Where is the time to be happy?

This is not to say that we should have no objects or relationships in our lives. However, the idea is to be aware of their limitations and not to get too much attached to them. We should strike a balance in everything. 

The mind will be peaceful only if we are able to discriminate between what is necessary and what is unnecessaryin our lives.  

Reducing Possessions, Relationships, Obligatory Duties and Transactions (PORT) is a practical way to look at life and happiness.

That is the PORT of call for HAPPINESS.