THIS WEEKEND JUST SPICE UP YOUR LIFE AND BE HAPPY

POTPOURRI OF SPICES IN OUR LIFE 

IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

When we think of spice we mean an aromatic or pungent vegetable substance used to flavour food, e.g. cloves, pepper, or cumin but what is spice of life?

Spice :SYNONYMS. excitement, interest, colour, piquancy, spiciness, zest, savour, tang, sharpness, saltiness. bite, edge. informal zip, zing, zap, punch, kick.

If you describe someone, especially a woman or a girl, as being sugar and spice, you mean that that person is behaving in a kind and friendly way: She could be all sugar and spice when she wanted to be.

WHAT DOES HAPPINESS MEANS FOR DIFFERENT PERSONS:-LET US ANALYSE

MR.A-Happiness for me is the essence of life, not the spice of life.

Every single action we do sum up for this one thing called happiness. Ever wondered why everyone wants to succeed in life? It is not the concept of success that drives people crazy, rather the ideology of happiness that we gain on achieving success.

Can you imagine your life without a smile, and all tears? Can you imagine not cherishing things that are dear to you? Can you imagine not laughing for no reason at all? Can you go without happiness?

One needs happiness as much as they need air to breathe, and more the happiness more it keeps doubling. It is a secret ingredient for our life recipe for which we strive and this ingredient is what makes the entire dish. It is the entire essence.

Then what spices up our life?

Hmm, interesting question!
Imagine a life full of happiness and always happiness and happiness and happiness.... everywhere you see there is happiness and now it slowly gets to you. We all soon fall into a monotonous life schedule and it gets boring.
Where is that spark...? Something is missing...! The magic, the eternal value of happiness is missing, and the dish is falling bland. In this can you think of anything that will 'spice' life up?
Of course, what better than the opposite of happiness! And, thus to bring back the original spirit into our life, we need this new ingredient which we all very well know as 'adversity'.
Yes, adversity is what spices our life. It gives the thrill; the kicks of ups and down when we fight , fall, and cry to get back on our feet to reach out to what we all believe is the essence of life, happiness.

Ms.X-

For me happiness in life and life is happiness. For me happiness is not a just a state which one receives momentarily. I think in collective process and what all I have in one time. Yes there can be some moments of high enthusiasm or laugh, or sometime ecstasy. For me Happiness is a average state of mind, where one can have some relief in their mind that things are good enough and she/he is happy for the life the world has given you.

So I am happy in my life. And yes I enjoy spices. So whether or not happiness is a spice in life, not sure about that. What is known to me is that I am happy in my life and if it is spice and then its a important part in my life.

Happiness is the experience of life like divinity. Happiness varies from man to man and for the same man from moment to moment. What was happiness for him at his school days is no longer interesting because his choices and preferences change. Man derives happiness even by the nod / smile he gets from the loved / respected ones. I remember people fondly remembering and feeling excited about the moment when their spiritual guru nodding for a moment in acceptance of their pranams to them during their visit some 20 years ago. Happiness cannot be perfectly measured or expressed. Definitely its not the spice of life but its the very purpose of LIFE if a man learns to enjoy the virtuous things in a legitimate way.

Short Story - Raju and His... #happiness

Raju, a very normal boy of early 20s is a working professional. He is of a friendly nature but, is short tempered also. His work keeps him occupied and his friends are always there for him, required or not. Raju has been a lucky boy throughout his life. Loving parents, nice upbringing, no worries, all happening great. He was one content man. Anybody seeing him would say that he was happy but, according to him, he was busy living his own life. A life where both happiness as well as sadness were nothing but little periods of time which he cherished living and learnt from. Be it long or short, as soon as they passed away, he moved on to new things. Things that were important, that were fun to do. Summing him up... no you couldn't sum him up in a word or a sentence. He was more than that. A packet filled of life. A bit of everything.

But, one day his life changed. Dramatically. Reason for the sudden change - I don't know. Yeah! You guessed it right. He was in love. Everyone who listened to his story, his friends, said leave it, it is one sided. But, he knew what it was. At least his eyes said so. I have known him since long and I can say, those deep black eyes never lied. For many months nobody knew what was Raju up to. His friends who called him up would tell him he was a changed man. They said, he was in some dreamland. He was happy but, without any reason. Only he knew the reason. He was mad enough to have listened to those comments and not reacted to them. He was enjoying his own sweet moments. Those times when nobody knew anything, not even the girl herself. Although, they were great friends, they discussed many a things under the sun but, Raju never told her how he felt about her, what plans he had for her, how dreamy the moments were with her. My GOD, he had become a day dreamer, and each time he was in his dream, all he did was smiling to himself and thanking the ALMIGHTY for giving him the thoughts, thoughts of her. And, the best time of his life of course. He was indebted to HIM.

Since he had this ritual of smiling uncontrollably whenever he thought of her, he named her Happiness. Yes, happiness, the feeling. You could call it "khushi ka ehsaas" in Hindi. Dumbstruck in his own world he had moved swiftly ahead. He did not notice that he had left his friends long back. He had really gone too far into the dream. Many a times he would rehearse all the proceedings of an awesome marriage in his head and smile at it. After sometime he would start all over again, same story but, different sets this time. And, yet all over again. Every now and then he was drawn into these dreams of his and was seemingly happy but, he had forgotten one basic rule of life. The basic rule which our hero missed - In reality, before you go ahead, marry someone, first of all, you have to please let them know that you want to marry them. And, for GOD's sake Please ask them how they feel about it.

What a dumb he was really, not to have told at least, the girl, what he had in his mind and heart. What he felt, thought about her. How could he miss this simple thing. But, to say the truth, he was too naïve at it. Never did he have any relationships in his life. This was a first, for him it was the first one. Or he had some other plans for her. Some grand plans. And this one would be his last. At least, he felt so. For the longest time. Man, he was happy for himself. He was so exited that he couldn't sleep many nights. Little did he know that these sleepless nights would be his companions months later. Because in some months dark reality hit him.

And, he was shocked, for life.

One fine day, they were talking on the phone. It was sometime around 8 in the evening. The deadly 8 PM of Raju's normal life. She was not in the best of moods. Raju was trying to know what happened. He did this little trick with her every time she did not feel good. He would go on asking and poking her about it to the farthest point and then there would come a time when she would just tell him what happened and so on. She would let her heart out to him. He would then keep calm and listen silently, picking out the important stuff in the discussion and filtering out the irrelevant ones. And, then he would provide his solutions aka. expert commentary for it. On most of the occasions his commentary was worth nothing but, he still took interest in listening to her words because solution or no solution, he knew he was sharing her burden. A burden, which at times can bring you down. How could he, see his partner bugged down with some irrelevant worries? Never. And, he took pride in sharing the crime.

But, today was different. Today, she was dead silent. None of his words were able to make her speak today. The longer it was taking for Raju to persuade her, it was becoming more and more harder for him too. And he also could not lash out anything at her because he could not afford to. A friend was not talking from his side anymore, he had become his true self now. He had become the lover now. The lover who he had buried inside himself for so long. He quickly decided that he is going to tell her the truth today. He decided to go full throttle and speak out his heart. He thought to himself, it is now or never. Let it go. And, at this point of mutual silence the lady couldn't hold back anymore and she spoke.

The conversation went some what like this -
Raju: [for the nth time] Are you going to tell me or not?
She: I can't. Actually, I don't know what to say.
Raju: [pulling his hair now] See, this is not going on for ever. Either you blurt out what happened or I'm going to say something you never would have expected in your wildest dreams.
She: [not listening to such a long sentence; too much into her own world] Even, I want to tell you something since many days.
Raju: [enthusiastically] Then go on! What are you waiting for?
She: [now slowly starting to cry] Sorry for everything! I have treated you very badly these days. But, forgive me. I was not in a state where I could understand what is right and wrong. I just hope you understand. [and she cut the call]
Raju: [mouth open, could not speak a word] ____ [apparently because the call was cut]

Raju tried dialing her number for the next 25 times and she would cut it each time. At last she messaged him, "Please do not call me, I can't cut your call so many times, I feel bad." Raju messaged back, "Then why the h**l are you not telling me what happened?" She finally messaged him, "You want to listen. Fine." Nervous Raju was staring down his telephone screen. He further read, "There's a guy. He proposed to me. On the 28th [of August]. I don't know how to reply him. My head is splitting when I think about all that. I have not slept since the last fortnight. I'm sorry to have bothered you so much." Now it was Raju's turn to turn into silent mode or say, dead mode, literally. He was shocked and couldn't believe it, what he just had read. He hoped everything to be plain lies. But, no it was not. The lightning of reality had struck. And struck real hard. Not having an idea about anything he asked her, "And you? What do you think about him?" She instantly replied, "I love him from long before. I just couldn't manage to say it out." And, that was it. By now Raju was really dead. He could only manage this one line. "I don't know what to say. But, I am devastated." He switched off his phone, threw it aside and dashed off to his bed. Face down, man he was terribly crying. Such a jolt. He could feel his heart rate change to 72 beats per second. Due to the shock. By 10 PM all the good about his life was over and he had turned into a pile of ash, to be blown away by the  slightest of winds.

The days that followed could be the said as the worst days of his life. And, about the nights, oh! his sleepless companions had returned to him again. He neither could eat, drink, work anything. From the outside, everything seemed fine. But, everything was burning, on the insides. He barely lived those days. Some of his friends tried to console him, some tried to yell and make things normal but, things had gone way too south for being normal again. No amount of coaxing, cajoling and sweet-talking would bring Raju to his old self again. Something in him had broken permanently. Yeah! his heart. "She"(Happiness) was not with him anymore. At least not the way he had imagined her in his dreams. In his day dreams. By his side. As his bride. Destiny had poisoned this story of his. His life story. His love story.

After those times, Raju went underground. He was hardly there to be seen. Some said, he had taken a break from everything. He himself felt he had changed. Permanently. All I can say is that he learnt. The one-sided heart break (as he would name it afterwards) broke him down to the core but, slowly he started to be unfazed by it. He tried to hurt himself by only thinking about her and being awake all night but, now he tried to forgive himself. He felt, he had done a blunder big time and he did a world of good by allowing him to become himself. At the beginning he wanted all her thoughts to be out of his system at once and failed. Now he doesn't fight with them, they come and go, he still is there. He has helped himself. Subsequently things did change a bit. He was learning the nuances of life. He was allowing himself to live. To live a life, a new life again.

cut across to present time...
I met Raju yesterday. He smiled at me. He was his old self. Calm as ever. Talking with his mother enthusiastically. I don't know how he feels from inside today but, I would give him full marks if he is acting that good. He has got a new found love these days. His family. Cannot be said rare but, to him it is life changing. He now loves these people more than how much he loved her. Or is it? Can love be measured? I see it in his eyes and to this day his eyes don't lie. I asked him about everyone and he was at his witty best. It felt soothing to get our old Raju back. Or a changed version of his past, I don't know. But, he was there. I put one quick question to him - Do you still...? And, he said, "Look around man, do I look like a loser? I have got everything in life. People around me love me for who I am, I can't just ignore that. And, I love being around people who love me. That is in itself more than what I can ask for. That is satisfying. That to me is now is my "Happiness"". And, he went on to play with his sister.

And, I folded arms, looked at the sky and smiled to myself,
"True happiness is not present in seeking something and getting it; it lies in enjoying what we already have and giving something back. Happiness when shared becomes "khushi ka ehsaas" of Life." :)

World is striving for happiness . A man works to earn money hoping that money can bring him happiness , A social reformer works selflessly to make changes in people's life and seeing able to make changes makes him happy . A mother will forego her meal for children to serve a additional serving because seeing the children satisfied or happy makes her happy. Everybody fall in love with people who makes them happy , we make friends who make us happy but not with people who make us cry. Everybody in this world is striving for happiness.

The problem is we can perceive happiness only through senses, we have 5 senses and we try to extract happiness as much as we can by using this 5 senses.We try to eat delicious foods, see beautiful landscapes, listen to good music , nice perception of senses , like to smell fragnance etc but this body is limited and so do the senses. I may eat two plates of sweets but cannot go for 3rd plate. If i hear music for hours,  i will make my ears ache, many people try to have bliss through sex and they end up in frustrations and what the most of mankind doing is a foolish thing , They are seeking continuous happiness through the instruments which are tired or satiated after few minutes or limited . Thus mankind suffers. Until one finds the art of finding happiness without involving senses one has to suffer and lead a unfulfilled life.

Happiness is like shadow of life , if you chase it , you will never be able to catch it . You will get exhausted and frustrated. If you remain being still , you will find, it is always with you and you will know how  foolish you are by seeking it in various places and in various relations and spending most of life in work in the hope of getting happiness through money.

If you see happiness as spice or flavor of life , one is going to suffer. By making it as something special and extra ordinary , you will try to have it and by doing so , you will fail to find it. The moment you treat happiness as something different or something you must have or something you must strive for , you have missed the point. Only when you remain still and calm you can have it.

Happiness is a flavor. It's the water when we drink when we are too thirsty or the sweet that we eat after eating a hot chilly. The level of happiness can only be measured after the depth of sorrow or unhappiness have been encountered.

Happiness is not the destination but can also be termed as the journey to achieve the destination.

In the literal sense, likening happiness to spice; too much of it (either spice or happiness) we cannot handle and the absence of either would be plain, rather bland.

I would definitely agree that happiness spices up life.Almost all of us are bound by schedules, agendas or to do lists. A little something that makes us happy, gives us the strength to persevere without giving in to the pressure.

For me, a bowl of pasta which my mom feeds me after returning from college is happiness. An illiterate autodriver replying " you welcome ma" in return to my thanks is happiness. The smell of the drizzle falling on the mud; more so on a hot, summer evening is happiness.

It is rightly said, "For those who wish to sing, always find a song." Seek and you shall find happiness. 

Can you eat sweets all day either it is lunch or breakfast.
I think your answer is same as me NO a big no. Why?
Cos we need flavour everywhere not necessary in food and beverages.
Same with our life , happiness works as sweets in our life after every action. Whereas spices are angry, upset, crying, motivating, fighting etc.

"After lunch or dinner we take sweets that is the best part of our food and trust me after crying or angry when we smile at something that is the best smile i ever felt."

Life is all about pursuit of Happiness.
When I say this I would also like to state the difference between Pleasure and Happiness.
Happiness is a broad term and is necessary for a Holistic functioning of Society and Humans.
While Pleasure is a momentary happiness which one gets from Senses, Like Good Music, Good Food.
While Happiness comes from some satisfaction, Emotional Acknowledgement. Success in some Creation.
The Ultimate form of Happiness is Fulfillment or Self Actualization.
This depends from person to person. But we all strive towards that.
As for the Mystics and those who are detached they try to achieve Bliss or Connection with the Divine. That is what Life and Happiness according to me.

This calls for a little thought experiment. First imagine life without happiness, no actual experiences of happiness in the past, thus no happy memories, no expectations of happiness at all since people would have no notion of happiness.

If my understanding is correct, you are using the stylized form of the word "spice"  and so I will not make any references to aromatic vegetable substances used to flavour food. But it's important to think about the way food is altered when spice is added to it.  Spice adds flavour to food and by adding flavour, reveal the essential nature of the food.
If you consider happiness to be the medley of positive emotions
I would say, it is clear that happiness is the spice of life, for it reveals the inherent duality of life.

In my opinion Happiness is like fragrance.
It enhances our life. Without it our life would have been dull.
When we are happy we tend to share it with our near and dear ones. Like fragrance, Happiness  is spread. We cannot hold the Happiness within ourselves.
Like fragrance, Happiness has diiffernt types. And everyone likes and wants some kind of fragrance. Isn't it similar to the Happiness then?
For me Happiness is the fragrance of life.

Happiness to me is not any quantifiable object or describable state of being. One can be simply happy in serenity and peace. Happiness is what pulls you out of the blues of life so in that way one may call it the spice of life, however I feel it would be better to call it the ultimate pursuit of conscious life (humans). At the end of the day, all people persevere not just to survive but to do so in a manner which provides them a peace of mind which I believe is true happiness.

I would like to think that the pursuit of achieving happiness is the spice of life. Happiness is a state of mind. Very elusive. But, if you want, it can be achieved in the most dark times as well. It is the process of achieving happiness, the things you do to achieve it, that shapes your life. And one day, like that elusive butterfly that we chased as kids, it comes and rests on your shoulder.

"Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor."
          - William Cowper

The phrase," Variety is the spice of life" was probably coined to  express how variety if added in our lives could have the affect of a  spice and enhance our everyday existence. Variety does to our lives the  same thing that spice does to food. It makes it more fun, more  interesting, more meaningful. Aid sometimes just likes a preservative it  can cure depression, and alleviate boredom.

Let me first define some terms for the purpose of this answer.

·         Life is what we do while alive.

·         Spice is what adds flavor and taste to food to make us want to eat that food again.

·         Happiness is joy you feel about the things you are doing, whether you achieve or fail.

The answer is, therefore, YES.
That happiness makes me want to do things.

Some people simply love spicy food. They can't resist from staying away from it. But they can't expect themselves to follow such a diet continuously, else they would regret in the near future for having done so. Same is the case with our lives. There WILL be ups and downs. One must always pursue happiness, rather then blaming the circumstances and lamenting.
Hence, happiness is not the spice of our lives, rather, it's our diet.

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