What is Happiness

This may seem like a very strange question to be asking but I feel like it is very hard for someone to feel true happiness and normally it is fleeting in nature. The google definition of happiness I believe is pretty dull and doesn’t hit on the things I want to cover. I believe happiness isn’t the feeling of happiness but more the lack of problems in ones life and when it is put that way, I think everyone will find it hard to say they are truly ‘happy’. A problem can range from something large like the fear of the future to something as small as a person you don’t get on well with. I think these things prevent us from being able to be truly happy with ourselves in the long term. We may experience temporary happiness in the short term but it doesn’t last very long and eventually it is going to fade away. The art of being truly happy is a life of being content with what you have but, in a world where everyone is driven into a life of competitiveness, it is very hard for someone to not be competitive. This could be competitiveness for fame, money, ego but with this form of uncontentness, it is very hard for someone to be content with who they are.

How do you become truly happy?

Before I even start, I am going to note that I am probably not the best person to be giving advice about this since I do find myself stressing a lot and so I wouldn’t say that I am ‘happy’ in the long term but I believe that I can figure out steps into doing it.

Firstly, happiness comes with acceptance. When I say acceptance, I mean accepting the present and the past and possibly the future, I know many people(me inclusive) who have a massive fear of the future and about whether they may fail or not and it can become an obstacle to your own success if you start to worry about things such as that. So, I believe that accepting the position and that you have potential is a very good start in beginning to be happy. I would definitely recommend surrounding yourself with positive people because it has become so common to be pessimistic and see the worst case scenarios in situations and so surrounding yourself with people with that sort of mentality is going to make it worse.

Don’t attach your happiness to one stream:

This is one of the things I learnt about the hard way. Never attach your source of happiness to one place be it a thing or a person because times can change and the second you lose those people you’ll lose your source of happiness because it had been attached to that thing and once that happens, it becomes very hard for someone to be happy until they refind that happiness in themselves.

Meditating:

Meditating and mindfulness has been passed around as being ‘cringe’ by most generations however I believe it plays a very important role in your happiness. So many people run away from their problems now-a-days rather than trying to solve them by facing them head on and it is what’s holding them back. Eventually they are going to have an experience that reminds them of the thing they’ve been trying to hide and then all of the sadness comes flooding back. So what i tend to do now is when something sad does happen, I would go and sit down on the floor against a wall in my room and just think about the problem head on and think about it enough to the point I’ve convinced myself that there is no reason for me to be worrying about it.

Smile more:

Something as small as smiling can have a very large benefit on your mental health. It releases endorphins and seretonin which are hormones which will make you feel good. Generally smiling will be more fun in the long term and also makes makes you more welcoming as a person. Especially in this generation where people don’t tend to smile as often maybe become it has become the norm that not smiling makes you ‘cool’ or ‘road’ it makes you stand out.