Happiness or Natural Highs

I've been thinking about happiness, and how it's been a conscious effort I've been making lately. You know the forward we've probably all gotten at least once in our lives - about natural highs?

NATURAL HIGHS

1. Being in love.

2. Laughing so hard your face hurts.

3. A hot shower.

4. No queues at the supermarket.

5. Taking a drive on a pretty road.

6. Hearing your favourite song on the radio.

7. Lying in bed listening to the rain outside.

8. Hot towels fresh out of the dryer.

9. Chocolate milkshake ... (or vanilla ... or strawberry!)

10. A bubble bath.

11. Giggling.

12. A good conversation.

13. Finding a £20 note in your coat from last winter.

14. Running through sprinklers.

15. Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.

16. Having someone tell you that you're beautiful.

17. Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you.

18. Waking up and realising you still have a few hours left to sleep.

19. Making new friends or spending time with old ones.

20. Having someone play with your hair.

21. Sweet dreams.

22. Making eye contact with a cute stranger.

23. Holding hands with someone you care about.

24. Running into an old friend and realising that some things (good or bad)never change.

25. Watching the expression on someone's face as they open a much-desired present from you. 26. Getting out of bed every morning and being grateful for another beautiful day.

27. Knowing that somebody misses you.

28. Getting a hug from someone you care about deeply.

29. Knowing you've done the right thing, no matter what other people think.

Couldn't find the email in my inbox so I got it from here. So sweet, people have left their own highs!

This other website lists a few more nice ones (wow, the net had everything!), such as:

- Riding down an empty road with all the windows down/top down with the wind blowing in ur hair

- Turning on the radio just n time to hear your favourite song

- Credit for achievements

- Applause

- The smell of freshly baked bread

- Singing along to your favourite song at the top of your voice

- Your first kiss (either with a new gf/bf or first ever)

- Candy floss

- dancing all night

- fitting into a dress which you couldn't two months before

- eating chocolate when you need it!

(yeah, Ive been biased and picked the ones I like best!!!)

Yes, so I experienced some snippets of happiness recently.

On sunday, I opened my laundry cupboard-cum-library to put some albums back when my gaze fell upon the books that my mother so kindly rearranged once my TERMITE problem got solved and my room got redone. Needless to say, everything had been rearranged. It suddenly occurred to me to look for one of my fabourite books as a child - one that had afforded me hours, nay, months and years of reading pleasure - Illustrated Fairy Tales of the World, a book that was MASSIVE when I was a chit of eight and had begged my parents to buy it for me at Nalanda at the Taj. I found it after some fiddling around and looked at it in fascination. Funny how small it seemed after growing 18 inches and gaining 20 kg! This book contained stories from all over the world - from Russia, from Africa, from Norway and Alaska and Romania and the Caribbean and India and Indonesia - with stunning water colour type pictures in rich, vivid colours. I looked around - at Crafting and Executing Strategy, at Mama Lola, at the Vedanta Treatise, at A Suitable Boy, at a probably obsolete book of maps and flags, and thought "This is my world". If someone would make a movie on my essence, one of the key shots would be the camera capturing me in a 360 degree shot of this tiny neglected space that no one but me spends more than a few minutes in. A space that no one really cares to know, much like the inner workings of my mind, which my family would rather ignore for their own comfort! It was the happiest 5 minutes of my Sunday.

Another revelation I had this morning: Happiness is at least half an hour of Jaggu and Tarana on Good Morning Mumbai on my way to work. If i ever move away I'm gonna need to find out whether they do podcasts.

Happiness, also a more steady sort, is loving one's work. I had a minor showdown at work on Saturday, leaving me to swallow tears in anger and frustration (and shame - for being unprofessional) in front of the men that I work with,, and my boss sorted it out (I think the dangerous catch in the voice, that maybe awakened their chauvinistic, protective side also helped!) Suddenly everyone was more cooperative, and I have felt kinda happy at work and not as nervous and harrowed since then. My work has been made more specific and everyone related to me has been given clear and specific instructions in relation to everything we do. They teach us in college how important teamwork is, and how often is that the first thing that falls apart? It was at that point I realised how important it is to love one's work. All my friends who have had jobs they have had to fight for, and fight in, tell me that it is only one's work that will ascertain one's value, and I hope I shall have something to show for myself eventually.

Its got me thinking that love is often like marriage. It's not always easy, it's frequently boring, it's prone to routine and misunderstandings and assumptions and miscommunications, it's a challenge, and one needs a whole lot of willpower and loyalty and staying power to actually get anywhere in the long-term, and that one needs one to escape the pressures of the other! I juts pray both stay interesting for me!

OK, that's it. I need to review Pyare Mohan for you but it was kinda mindless and I'm wondering what on earth I can say.