The True Meaning Of Happiness

   

 We keep going on in our lives searching for happiness. Wasting day after day simply searching for a feeling. Most people even believe they cannot simply be happy unless they’re doing a certain thing or are with a certain someone. I’ve come to realize however, that what makes one happy as a child is different than what makes him/her happy as a teenager, an adolescent or even as a full grown-up.

     Everyone wants to be happy, we can surely know whether we feel it or not. But can we actually define happiness? Before digging deeper into this, lets look at the simplest definition for happiness. And who better to ask for simplicity than the average Joe of all websites. Yes, I’m talking about Wikipedia.

     According to all mighty, all knowing Wikipedia: “Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.” Big words for an average Joe (Thanks for being so simple and easy to understand man… really…pretentious piece of…)

     To keep it simpler, I’m going to try to come up with my own definition of true happiness. I guess it’s just that feeling when you get when you feel like you’ve accomplished something you never thought you could do. Or maybe it’s that feeling when you get when you eat something really good after long hours of starvation. Maybe it’s that feeling you get when you know you’ve made a loved one smile.

     You know what? Happiness is the result - the end of a process if you may – of one’s pride when accomplishing something. “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” - Dalai Lama XIV

     A more complex way of look at it would be like Psychologist Ed Diener (author of Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth) said: a “combination of life satisfaction and having more positive emotions than negative emotions.”

     And you know what, I think he’s right (seeing that I understood his definition a lot easier than Wikipedia’s). “People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” - Abraham Lincoln

     That being said, maybe happiness is more of a state of mind rather than a feeling. Maybe for one to be truly happy, s/he has to first be in acceptance of one’s self. When one’s concept of a self-portrayed image is confirmed, or becomes real, it seems like we feel more secure, more alive, like we’ve proved our existence.

     In the end I realized that it’s all just a waste of time. People should not keep trying to look for happiness but instead look for someone to share it with. Honestly I can’t think of a better example than when everyone’s experiences with cabs. How many times have you walked around the streets not needing a cab and having them pass by the dozens? And how much time have you spent waiting on a single cab to pass by when you really needed it? It’s pretty much the same deal with happiness.

     “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” - Albert Camus