I talk about happiness a lot in my little corner of the inter web, but it’s because I feel it’s the absolute most important thing you can achieve in life. Money? No. Love? Important, but no. HAPPINESS. I’m not talking THINKING your happy; I’m talking true, to the core, absolute happiness.
I was talking to my friend last week and something he said struck a chord with me. I can’t remember the exact statement (I probably drank too much wine earlier in the night because #wineo), but it was along the lines of finding true happiness within yourself. I kept thinking and saying, ‘well this makes me happy, that makes me happy…’ And he kept stopping me and pointing out that I was talking about external things or people that brought me happiness, but what about the happiness within myself?
SO, that very next day, I took a break from my work for a bit and actually wrote down a list of what happiness means to me. Because, the thing is, I am happy, I feel I’m happy, but is it happiness that comes from within myself and no one else? Am I depending on anyone else to bring me this happiness? Am I truly happy?
After doing my little exercise (and thinking while I should have been sleeping because lately I haven’t been sleeping, ugh?!), I concluded that yes, I do feel I’m truly HAPPY. While there might be things in my life at the moment that don’t add to my happiness, I am, deep down, happy with myself.
While my life is far from perfect and I am still a work in progress (I hate to break it to you, but we all are), and I have my high and low moments, as we all do, I do believe I have found true happiness within myself. It took years. 29 to be exact (yes, I’m turning 30 in a few short months! What the what?!).
True happiness should have nothing to do with anyone, but yourself. Yes, your family, your friends, your significant other, can add to your happiness and elevate it at times, but without them would you still be happy?
Take a moment to think about that.
We all go through hard times. Unfortunately, that’s life. Loss of a loved one. Break ups. Divorce. No one said it was going to be easy, and when something less than ideal does happen, it will be hard. You will grieve. You will be sad. But as time goes on, you should still be able to find happiness. Happiness within yourself.
When you find THAT happiness, there’s nothing else like it. Nothing at all.
Image borrowed from Now Novel
Well said pretty!
Thank you!!
Well said. I agree.
True happiness is that which we find within ourselves.
However we are not created or designed to function in solitude.
We truly cannot be happy just by ourselves, we infact cannot enjoy happiness just by ourselves.
In essence happiness may not be something we find somewhere either outside or inside.
Happiness is like a meal of pizza…when everyone takes a chunk each…together.
Happiness is shared, co-enjoyed.
The flip side of this is…Do you become sad when people are not around you or when you are not interacting with people? No.
True happiness seeks to share with other people, happiness is so like a viral disease but in a good way…happiness cannot keep to itself…yet when by itself it does not become sad…
I hope i have not confused you.
Nice blog.
Hi Yinka! So sorry for this terrible delay in responding to your thoughtful comment. It went into my spam for some reason. Anyway, I really appreciate you taking the time to comment, and I totally agree with you on happiness and it being shared with other people, as well! Best, Julie