Nupur Mahajan Column: The Secret (ours)

Some of us are hard-coded positive - we function on the belief that no matter how many members throng the CCI we will find a parking slot. That too in the main foyer… and, we do. Run dangerously late for that early morning flight and even as the driver protests, rest assured, and make it. You operate on best-case scenario and more often than not it unfolds such. And when it doesn't, rarely, you grant it not more than a shrug. For you are programmed to register the good. Deviations, if noted, merely reinforce the belief in the larger good.

In your mind the universe conspires (complies) with you and never mind what it brings forth - most often in compliance with your plans - you go with the flow, certain that it flows your way. No, it's not a defense mechanism: not sour grapes and not the happy Pollyanna - the glad syndrome where you live in a fantasy that life will always have a happy ending. Where you over-simplify everything and force-read it happy? No. You are not in denial. There's no lurking sorrow that you stash under your satin comforter called, Denial.

Happiness is not a security blanket. Happiness is rooted in reality. And happiness is different from pleasure. Pleasure is fleeting; externally harvested as it is. You could well be surrounded by pleasure: fast cars and fat pay-cheques and yet experience no joy. Meanwhile, happiness - inner joy - comes from within and defies the external. No, it is not superficial, a happy filter, but your core. And it is born of positivity. Positive folk are neither optimistic nor pessimistic they are but believers. Adversity is life's sum and substance, and this admittance doesn't dampen their belief. Nay, positive spirit.

Positivity is blessedness. It is empowerment born of a certain connectedness with the Divine. You do and leave the outcome to Him with the belief that what life serves up is well deserved and fair. You are at peace with your limitation of being merely doers. That the outcome rests with Him you find not limiting but reassuring. Sometimes it is harsh and breaks you. You let it: you shatter, you fall and you cry. And it is belief that gets you to stand up again, and believe that you must go on. That you will go far… Farther still.

Yes, we are an aberration. Perhaps. But no, they cannot shroud us in psychobabble that validates their misery. If anything, they can join rank and we're happy to let them in. Only there is no tutorial on positivity. It's innate. You have it or you don't. The bereft need indoctrinate it. For happiness is an act of choice. Your will.

I have willfully not corrected a certain chink; long detected... Despite reasonable recall I never retain an unpleasant exchange. Be it in person: personal and hurtful, or even on television: distant but disturbing. There's no denial or even selective retention; it's involuntary. The pain registers and one takes corrective action but the import of the occurrence, the harshness and negativity, mitigates. One cannot revisit and relive it. Seemingly absurd, but pain is the sweetest addiction. Even as it corrodes we hold on to our pain and revisit it for its familiarity. Confident that such trips reaffirm our endurance even as they actually reinforce our victimisation...

The naysayers are never bereft of wisdom-supply but is there a secret for us, the shiny, happy people?

When grateful acknowledgement, blessedness and self-belief turn arrogance one doesn't realise. The association is offensive and arrogance an ugly word - yet it is the plague of the happy tribe. Its unobtrusiveness, for arrogance comes with acquired riches and blessedness your core, is what gets it to creep in. Your Midas touch starts to make you brazen. Ups your risk-taking ability. That He is your charioteer makes you feel invincible. Bullishly unapologetic. "Nothing wrong can happen to me," you believe. You are unafraid - but arrogantly so. There's that certain self-assured hubris (and not humility). Stop! There's no place for arrogance, never mind unintentional, in your repertoire.

Strike that impossible balance. Retain the belief and that aura of victory, remain determined and undiscouraged - entertain no doubt - and yet know at every moment, of this willful existence, that you are but an instrument of His will. Your positivity, no matter innate, is a blessing. Be ever thankful, assume nothing and retain fear. No, walking to Siddhivinyak on Tuesday will not do the trick. That's tokenism - pardon the harsh dismissal. For blessedness, and consequentially humbleness and gratefulness, is not a Tuesday sentiment.

That is, unless you find parking only on Tuesdays?

Nupur Mahajan is a sum of many parts. Ideas are her business even as her creative streak sees her straddle television, advertising, publishing, radio and brands. Reach her at nupurmahajan@icloud.com