Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others: This is a beautiful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson about happiness and its beauty in sharing. I don’t quite know how many of us think of happiness as a conscious choice. Maybe we’re trained to believe that it happens in the background. Maybe there’s another angle to it.
What if happiness was a conscious choice – a habit that we need to create to train ourselves on becoming happier? See, this immediately makes happiness a tangible emotion rather than something out of our control and influence. The beauty in most of our emotions is that we have a certain level of influence on them.
If it wasn’t the case, these emotions would be painful to deal with. And we’d always be under their mercy. I’m trying to appeal to a side of us that says – I do have a certain level of influence on how I feel on a daily basis. Maybe that means, our lives are not always being swept away in the motions of a day, but instead a conscious choice that can be beautiful every minute.
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others Meaning
The first meaning of this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks about the joy of sharing happiness with others. We can perhaps challenge this – there is also a thing called selfish happiness! No matter how much we like to believe that we’re isolated characters and completely independent, I think that we’re connected. There is a special sense of joy when you do something for someone else apart from you. (Related: Quotes on happiness)
Some people may call it selflessness, but if it makes us happy – then maybe it is selfish too. I don’t want to get into the semantics, but the purpose of life is to be happy right? And that means, giving ourselves all opportunities to be happy.
If you stop for a minute and ask yourself – how can I be happier? you’ll start finding some amazing answers. Maybe to extend it a bit more, we can infuse it with love, kindness and happiness for others. It is one of those things which gives you double the joy as you share.
Making someone else happy, gives us a sense of warmth and joy that sparks a bit of magic within us. I want to share a small anecdote that happened years ago but made me smile.
“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
The happiness anecdote – a perfume poured on others while getting some on yourself
A few days ago, we were at an NGO, it was the time for evening snacks and we were eating the cake which was distributed equally among all. A young kid, after finishing his piece of cake tried taking a little from the girl next to him. Being a bit reluctant, the kid went away but after some time I saw the same girl coming toward him offering her share.
It took me by surprise and I asked her “You don’t have a cake now, are you not sad?” The girl replied “He is happy” and I asked “You?” and she said, “Of course, I am happy”. Maybe it was the innocence of her face or the sheer joy in her smile that swept me away that day. But I couldn’t help myself reminiscing about this incident. Tiny droplets of joy aren’t they?
And the funny thing is – it made me also happy because it touched an inner emotion that doesn’t often come out. Maybe it was kindness, love, affection or something else which I can’t put a finger on. You can already see the richness of a kind act and the type of emotions it can create. Maybe happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without pouring some on yourself.
What is happiness?
Thinking about the incident made me ask – “What’s happiness?”. A beautiful phenomenon of keeping yourself in an exciting mood, celebrating the life you live, for the person you are and for the beauty world offers you. A feeling which says, there are plenty of things to upset you but you prefer to live the moment.
I asked the next question, “What should I do to be happy?” The answers are linked with other people. People who comfort you, who rejuvenate your spirits, the ones who make you feel happy. And when I asked, “How can I make someone make me feel happy?” The answer was right there “Make them happy”.
Happiness is reciprocal. You make someone happy and you are happy, either by them or by the act of making them happy. It may be a little out of comfort to make others happy at times. But more often the effort, money, time and energy spent will always be rewarded with much more happiness than expected. And who doesn’t like such rewards?
“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Really loved the way you brought that love is reciprocal. Very beautiful.
Thank you Neel :)
Beautiful & inspiring write up Vinay . Happiness is subjective . May we all find our sources of happiness & be content with it :)
Happiness is the essence of life…!!
:). Thank you Veena!
Thats a beautiful quote. We are always running in search of happiness. But we don’t realize the fact that we can find happiness even in the smallest act of kindness that we do. Hardly people realize this fact and live the race of life without being happy.
Perfectly placed Krishna, it reminds me of a quote – “Little things don’t mean a lot in LIFE, they mean everything”. I think we are so lost in trying to find meaning in the bigger things that we tend to forget how important the small things are in life. And those are the things which are going to stay with us for a long long time, the bigger ones are ephemeral!
True. Absolutely agree to your point.
:)..
True. Agree with you, Vinay!
May we all be happy :)
Thank you Anita :)
Very true. One cannot be happy all by oneself. Genuine happiness is osmotic: it passes on to others.
Thank you Matheikal. I like the usage of the word osmosis, reminds me of my high school biology class. Although I don’t remember anything else they taught, this one word seemed to remain and now it has a purpose too. A very clever usage indeed :)
Vinay,
Nice post!
The definition (perspective) of happiness is the most evident, but still difficult to understand. It wants us to shift our sole perspective towards everything around us!
I imagine the world where this sort of happiness exists, and you know what, it already makes me feel happy!
One of my everyday bucket list entries should include ” Make someone Happy!” :)
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Amit :). True, the definition plays a significant role in our feeling of it as well. It is a lovely way of putting across happiness in imagination as well Amit, very few people actually have the power to do that. I am happy to know that this post did create a few smiles. Thank you!
Well said Vinay, I guess this is very much true for everyone: “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”
Hi Vinay Nagaraju,
This is a wonderful quote. Thanks for sharing …
:) Thank you Sakib!
Nice article “The Happiness lies in helping others :)
Thank you Ankita :)