I used to be happy.

A few days back, I was looking at some old photographs with a friend. As I browsed, I noticed this stark difference in the way I looked back then and the way I look now in photographs. I used to invariably be smiling to the extent of radiating an enduring glow and now it’s just a forced ephemeral smile, trying to look happy when I’m really not.

That got me thinking and I said, “I don’t think I’m as happy as I used to be back then.” To this, my friend who, I must admit, knows me quite well, said, “I’ve seen you this happy whenever you’re talking to him in the mess.” And he left. Pondering over this, I realized that he had generated one of the many hypotheses I needed to figure out the reasons for the difference. I will try and dissect them one by one as I did back then and hopefully, do justice to each one in the process.

People. Have the people in my life changed? They say, as you age, you accumulate more new friends and become closer to old ones. I would have to admit I’m not in frequent touch with all my old friends but I do know that anytime I call on them, they will be right there and vice versa. New friends, I have made plenty, and they are a great bunch of people, people who would give their right arm to see my happy. Family is a constant factor in my life and I can say with absolute conviction that my relationship with them, if anything, has become stronger over the years. Thus, I was compelled to believe that it is not, indeed, because of a change in the ‘people’ in my life that I am not happy. This reasoning, of course, was under the assumption that great relationships cause happiness. I would not dare to test it under the antithetical assumption that great relationships take happiness away, simply for the absurdity of the thought.

And that brings me to my second hypothesis. Situation. IIMB, BCG, Yale. Enough said. Hypothesis rejected.

Three, appearance. I asked a friend what would make her happy and she said, “losing 15 kg of weight.” An unbelievable hypothesis for someone who always looks beyond the skin, in short, someone idealistic. But come to think about it, appearances do have an effect on the image one has of oneself and therefore, one’s comfort with one’s own skin. (The excessive use of ‘one’ is to avoid any gender-based connotations). I, however, firmly believe, on the basis of the aforementioned photographs, that I have not changed so much. I have not become thinner or fatter or taller, nor have I got a weird haircut or had a sudden burst of acne or anything remotely related to these. Therefore, this leads me to believe that ‘appearances’, or a change in them, have not had any bearing on my degree of happiness.

Another one of my friends said, “appreciation.” Yes, appreciation makes me happy and always would, considering how hungry for love I am. But then again, because of the second reasoning above, the appreciation that I gather has increased too over time. I am definitely more comfortable being me than I have ever been. I am more confident about myself and what I can do and a lot of it is because of what the people around me believe. And this leads me to conclude that this factor has not changed sufficiently in the adverse direction to make me sad.

And here, I exhaust my hypotheses with no valid conclusions. If nothing, really, has changed, why do I feel that I used to be happy?