“Being able to do what you want, when you want to, must surely be the aim of civilization”. I read this statement and it set me thinking. I pondered over the word civilization and to me it meant, a community that comes together, decides a way of life and works towards its betterment and progress. I re-read the aim, “being able to do what you want, when you want to.” The first thought that struck me as the unaltered aim of all civilizations was, “We all want to be able to be happy. When? Of course at all times.” The word “ABLE” is the key in the accomplishment of this aim and marks the difference between “want to be happy” and “want to be able to be happy”.

It sounds vague when I say, “ we all want to be happy”. There has to be some visible source or way for it. Our happiness is attributed either to some activity, thing or person. Well this a myth that we have been living with. There does exist “pure happiness” independent of all externalities. This is the ultimate goal of civilization but only a few have achieved it because the rest of us never aimed for it.

Coming back to our normal extrinsic happiness, the first fact to acknowledge is the non-correlation between money and happiness after a certain limit. Studies have proved it and your own personal experience will verify it. There is a diminishing marginal utility of money after a specific point. Roger Hicks, the famous photographer, aptly states it as, “… there might not also be a quality plateau for money, above which your talent for living matters more than your income.” All said being true, the problem of our material driven world is that that the “certain limit” of money never comes and it is never enough. Money will improve the standard of your living but it is the conscious positive conditioning of mind that will improve the standard of thoughts and consequently standard of life.