My Journey to Happiness Mountain

What led Amal to discover Happiness Mountain

Jack: Let’s start out with discussing your WHY behind writing your book, Happiness Mountain.  What led you to pursuing this topic and writing the book? 

Amal: Let me share why I wrote the book. I was born in Sri Lanka, a beautiful Island in the Indian Ocean. I completed my high school and university in Sri Lanka. I did a bachelor’s degree in completed Computer Science & Engineering. Then I went to the United States and Joined IBM in Poughkeepsie, New York. That is how I started my successful technology career. After that, I traveled around the world, built systems for many countries, UK, Canada, US, UAE and many others. I married in 2003 to a beautiful Sri Lankan girl. Then we migrated to Canada and settled in Vancouver, British Columbia. We had two boys in 2008 and in 2009, we both joined a bank, got a brand-new house, and I thought everything going to be great and live happily ever after.

But it didn’t happen.

In 2008 after the 2008 financial crisis, my office environment became really depressing with many layoffs and uncertainty. People were not happy, including myself. On top of that my marriage was not going well either. We were not happy.

I was not happy at home and not happy at the office. That is a lot to take. Then I went through a divorce, and it was very tough. Going through the divorce with two little children, four years and five and a half, was the toughest thing I have ever experienced.

I did what most people do, blame the other person. I blamed my former wife and started another relationship expecting that to be good. That also did not work out, and we broke up after four years. I then to realized I am missing something.

I did good education. I have a good job. Everything seems good and theoretically I should be happy. But I wasn’t. In 2017 I decided to leave everything aside and go and find what is meaning of life and what is the meaning of happiness.

Then I realized there is no one clear definition of happiness in the world. There is not clear answer for happiness today.

Then I started my journey to find happiness. I did nine days straight of meditation at a spiritual treat. I got my mind cleared. After many years of research and applying them to my life, I found a new definition, a philosophy, and a practical methodology for happiness. 

I want to share the discovery I made with everyone seeking happier life and that’s why I wrote the book.

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