Happiness is way above smiles

If happiness were smiles, Whatsapp will be our God. Stand-up comedians will then be angels. Jokes will be the mantras to chant daily. Comedy will be the genetic sutra in religious books to be revered. Fiction will then have some comical character as the protagonist every time. Places of religious worship will have comic-books in place of everything else that we see today. Smiles then would no longer remain an index of real feelings but would slide downwards fast to rest on a pedestal posing like a beatific super-natural manifestation that achieves nothing.

If happiness were smiles, Whatsapp will be our God.

To smile, let me just say bluntly, is not happiness. A dictator, a bully, an immoral business magnet, a worshipper without a sense of sacrifice, a politician with no plans to do real good, and an inventor with no humanism to mention a few examples, can smile and yet be illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. They only appear to be sharing joy and happiness but aren’t genuinely happy about whatever it is that they are doing. I have seen people in restaurants smile and walk away leaving half the food that they ordered uneaten and wasted. I have seen youngsters smile as they buy expensive gadgets without even noticing the stress creases on the face of their parents. I have seen people borrow huge amounts of money to arrange lavish weddings or parties and stand there smiling without even understanding that they are, in fact, tense. Each time I have wondered if their smiles were really a reflection of how happy they feel and have concluded that they cannot possibly be linking happiness with their smiles.

Gandhi once said that ‘happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony’. So what could be instances that link happiness and smiles? Well, not being angry can lead to happiness. Making up your mind to get on with a task has all the ingredients to initiate happiness. Unconditional love leads to happiness. Making efforts to forget pain is happiness. Reading a good book, watching a well-made movie, listening to a poem that has the beats of truth can all have happiness built into them. There will be a million things like the ones that I have mentioned that may result in a smile but will be there to add to your happiness quotient.

The funny thing in the smile-happiness relationship is that we are gullible enough to assume that a smile will make us happy and so we are constantly searching for factors that will induce happiness. This is the reason we go out on buying sprees. I have done this many times and realised every time that I come back from my impulsive shopping jaunts and simply dump expensive things bought on the sofa without bothering to even open them. I then pick up a book to follow the life of an imagined character on its pages and experience the calm resonance of a feeling that some will call happiness. Sitting with Specky, my wife, with a mug of tea and listening to her stories of how her day went makes us both happy. When we sit or stand or walk around talking about a complex topic that I am planning to write on is what our happy moments are built on. Funnily, a lot of such moments go without the compulsion of having to smile. Yes, smiles do make their appearance but are never a guarantee that they tag happiness along.

A dictionary defines a smile as ‘a pleased, kind, or amused facial expression, typically with the corners of the mouth turned up and the front teeth exposed‘… and I was surprised to discover that happiness isn’t featured anywhere. Even the Wikipedia says that ‘a smile is formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. It is believed it takes about 42 muscles to smile‘. No mention of happiness here either. I remember during our visit to Bamboo Flat, an island near Port Blair, we came across a woman busy arranging a big catch of locally caught fishes and though she worked without a pause and was literally bathed in sweat, there were lines of muscular contraction around her eyes. Her eyes were smiling. She was happy. I think it is the level of involvement with whatever it is that you are doing that defines happiness.

All this is not to say that a smile is nothing but a villain. After all, as Mother Teresa did say that, ‘peace begins with a smile…‘ All that she is saying is that you need to be the reason for someone else to smile. I believe that if we ‘find opportunities to make someone smile, and to offer random acts of kindness in everyday life‘ (Roy T Bennet), we are better prepared to discover happiness.

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Arvind Passey
01 February 2019