Of hope and of joy

Sushruti Tripathi writes on hope and the general listlessness that encompasses us students every now and then. Perfect with a hot cuppa.

That feeling we don’t write about often enough.
                                                                     – Sushruti Tripathi


I always thought that the reason people write more about their 
suffering than their joy is because sorrow is a beautiful emotion. 
Pain is a feeling that justifies a thousand words written about it. 
But very recently, someone said this – "we all write about pain, 
because it is easy to write about suffering. But it is very difficult 
to let go of that depressing thought and write about happiness. 
Embracing happiness is not something everyone has the 
courage to do, because people are cynical."

And this made me think. I went through every page of 
everything I had written recently, and then I realised something 
very strange. I had written a lot about depression, a lot more 
about confusion, a little about love, but nothing about being 
happy. Just plain simple happy. Why? It is not like I haven't had 
happy times recently. Then why have I not penned down 
anything that on reading makes me giggle, and laugh? Or just 
makes me smile?

Maybe he is right, maybe it is because it is difficult to pen down 
the exact emotion called happiness. To write about that warmth 
in your heart which makes you smile for no reason, to describe 
the ocean of memories behind that silly giggle, to put into words 
the overwhelming laughter spree you went on with your best 
friend at a random dinner, and to write it all without a constant 
feeling of having jinxed it by acknowledging that you are happy. 

It takes courage to smile at life and not get cynical. To let go of 
the nagging doubt that the happiness will end. To stop thinking 
about the despair that awaits once the happiness comes to an 
end. We all surprisingly accept that our sorrows may last 
forever. But we live with the constant belief that any happiness 
that comes our way is but a transitory phase, a passing 
moment of joy. Then, if we are always in so much doubt, have 
we ever been really happy?


Remember that one moment of unadulterated exuberance. It 
could be any memory, the one where you laughed until you 
were struggling for breath, or the one where you hugged a kid 
at the orphanage and made him smile. Pick out a memory 
when you were happy, with no doubt, no cynicism. And relive 
that moment. That is what happiness tastes like. Unadulterated. 
Pure bliss. And once you get a taste of this intoxicating joy, 
you'll never want to be anything but happy.


Of course, you don't have to take it to a whole new level like I 
did. For the past few days, I have been smiling to myself like an 
idiot. Sometimes, because of the memories playing in my head, 
and some other times, because life seems so beautiful. But this 
silly smile is here to stay. There is hope. :)


“Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, 
 Whispering 'it will be happier'...”
                                                                   ― Alfred Tennyson