Are there any shortcuts to happiness?
What is the world of self-help books and spiritual gurus that show you the way to happiness?
The Apollo gods of Greeks said – Know Yourself. You are responsible for your happiness. At the same time nothing should be in access – not even happiness! 2305 years later, the happiness industry is going to touch $12 billion.
You are happy or unhappy through your own actions. Nobody else gives you happiness or sadness. But we don’t believe in this now. We blame the government or the mother in law or the boss or the wife for everything. Philosophers have long said that happiness is not in money, you can’t buy happiness. Yet we are after money.
There are more happiness coaches in Britain than dentists! Without any formal degrees, a life coach would charge 100 pounds an hour for directing you to happiness. The market of self help books has shot up in the past few years. Paul McKenna’s Change your life in seven days is selling like hot cakes. Seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey is an all time favorite. John Grey’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus shows how a couple can understand each other and stay happily together. On the other side, Steve Salerno’s Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless talks about the big the marketing driven business of self help.
Really, the source of happiness is within you. Happiness is momentary. We should be ready for sorrow. Your actions are responsible for your happiness or sorrow. This is the Indian philosophy – and is cheap and effective!
Adapted from Kanti Bhatt’s article in Chitralekha 26 September 2005. You can read the full article here.
But “the source of happiness is within you” is exactly what many of the “self help” people are saying, and what many of the life coaches are coaching.
Most would categorise Landmark Education itself as self-help, and many Landmark trained people do actually work as life coaches.
And without having a degree in making a difference, they do make a difference.
The Indian Philosophy that is “cheap and effective” itself requires gurus, temples, ashrams, scriptures, monks, and a lifetime of practice and support structures.
Just go and tell some unhappy person “the source of happiness is within you” and see how much difference that makes to them!
No need for the Curriculum for Living if just telling someone, or just giving them a book, worked, but it rarely does.
Wealth doesn’t per se create much happiness, and neither does happiness per se create much wealth. We can use both in our world.
Thank you for your comments. They are valuable.
I agree that self help books and life coaches actually are awakening the source of happiness that is within one’s self. I myself am a person who would buy a self help book before a fiction, or be willing to try out any new thing to get closer to the real self.
The purpose of the article in the magazine, and my excerpting it here, was to get aware of the “industry” that has been created around this. Moreover, every time I think about it, I feel it’s really some very basic principles of life that everybody talks about. It’s so simple, yet so difficult.
And we also need to understand the authenticity of many principles and practices. For some, this is just a money making exercise.
Of course, wealth and happiness are not alternatives. They should both be present.