Questioner (Q): How to be happy without depending on others?
Acharya Prashant (AP): First of all, one begins by seeing that the happiness that is obtained by depending on others has certain transience about it. That helps us be disengaged from that kind of happiness. Otherwise, if one is certain that the source of happiness is in the world, lies in the others, then the very possibility, the very inspiration to seek differently doesn't arise.
So, we begin from honestly examining what we are anyway usually doing. We are continuously seeking happiness in this or that and we are succeeding, and we are continuously seeking happiness. Which means the success is incomplete and short-lived even if it comes. We highlight success as our achievement, and we downplay the failure as a law of life.
So, if you obtain success, that is happiness, using your efforts, what you want to selectively remember is that you tried and you succeeded in getting happiness. That the happiness faded away is conveniently forgotten or even if it is remembered, it is remembered as something unavoidable, something to do with some unjust universal law.
We have surrendered to the cycle. What is the cycle about? “We will work hard to attain happiness and then the happiness will wither away and because it withers away, we again try hard to get more or same happiness”, and the cycle continues. We have made peace with this scheme of things. We have told ourselves this is the universal order and success lies in incessantly chasing happiness, getting it for a while, losing it, reclaiming it, again losing it. That's how the Ego has defined success and its satisfaction.
