Other side of the river
It is not acceptable to many that life is same at the other side of the river. If not everyone but most of them wants to try their luck , not necessarily for financial gains or materialistic pleasures , the curiosity could be for knowledge and spiritual experience . If we need to answer this question in one word that why human beings are travelling since ages across the globe and to many unknown destination , the answer would be curiosity.
Living in Pakistan and thinking to travel for the sake of knowing the secrets of happiness , since it has been assumed that that the western societies are much more wealthier and much more happier and much more civilized,organised, disciplined,independent,liberal and provides social justice to its subjects . It has been taken as a fact that western societies are providing equal opportunities to the people to grow and flourish and citizens have been trained to be successful in their practical lives . The people are not frustrated and west have found the solutions for happiness as a community and for the individuals , therefore be there and you will be happy .
Maybe some or most of the above mentioned perceptions are true but still i wanted to analyse it on the basis of my short visit to London, which was designed willfully to observe the overall ratings of happiness in the capital of Europe. I wanted to be a loner this time and spending time ,thinking and talking to strangers in my quest for happiness and having first hand knowledge about the happiness and to some extent about the contentment.
First thing , people are walking nonstop all around with their gadgets ,typing , thinking , reading ,talking on tabs and cell phones ,their faces doesn’t reveal the presence of treasure ,which i was looking for in the first instant . But the continuity of pedestrians movement ,motivated me to become the part of the stream and look deep into the reasons of their popular happiness , at least it is a popular perception in my country .A very generalize and hypothetical statement that came abruptly into my mind is the view of happiness on the faces of teens , chirping and dancing with bottles of beer , is it the time of their lives to be happy and do i know if teens of my country are happier too in their own ways and own manners and their very own provisions to enjoy happiness .
Maybe some 100 years ago when world was quite a vulnerable place for travel , the life was different and criteria of happiness was different , world has changed now , people know a lot and knowing a lot about places and happenings , we are living in the time of media , we have lots to tell and we are bound to know lot , this know can not be considered as knowledge but this is knowing .Most of the time the unwanted and tailor made news makes you depressed and we become doubtful about the serenity of life .
I had this perception that if someone migrated to UK from Asia ,twenty years ago he or she would be having the life similar to Prince and princesses of Europe , I have presumed that citizens with such abundant opportunities and with such a grand tourism industry and options to trade and sell, everyone will be rich , at least i have presumed that the governance systems of most of the European countries have been engineered to a certain level of perfection , where no one needs to work or work only for the sake keeping him/her self busy and alive and not for the sake of bread and butter .
But unfortunately i felt that nature has some bigger idea in its mind about the segregation of individuals into different socio_economic classes , the people seldom die because of basic needs of food and hunger but they die frequently with the abundance of food and related luxuries .People are smart , people are weak, intelligent , dull, insane, orthodox ,liberal ,entrepreneur, parasites , clever, criminal,spiritual, dervish, greedy , benevolent , volatile, traitors and lovers .
More or less , the nature have created such division everywhere in the world among the individuals and what the system have done for them and to them , it has tamed the people to observe certain code of conduct ,that again under the law.people pretends to be happy in the cage of their responsibilities vicious monthly circles of their debts .
The working class , enjoys , fresh air ,green and clean environment, peace of living , free education for children and many more facilities , which actually are not free of cost and the nationals pay sizable taxes to enjoy these benefits but still they seems to be running behind the desires and happiness ….. to be continued