What Is Happiness?

Happy

1. Feeling or expressing joy,

2. Causing joy or gladness,

3. Fortunate or lucky,

4. Satisfied or content.

Personally, I often forget that happiness is an emotion. It isn't a goal, a destination or something that we should strive to achieve. Sometimes we have happiness and sometimes we don't, but we can't kid ourselves into thinking that if we choose certain paths in life or execute particular actions that we will reach the destination of happiness. 

As humans, we are capable of feeling an enormity of different emotions, and it is often forgotten that being happy is one of those.

Over the past few months, I have found myself feeling more negative about my life. If you asked me why I had begun to feel sad, lost and lonely, I would probably be able to give you one or two reasons, but there is nothing specific that I can put my finger on and say 'that is what I need to change to be happy'. It's impossible.

I've spent my time believing that if I do things such as change my diet, exercise harder, socialise more and keep myself busy, then I will reach happiness and therefore get back to my positive self.

That right there is exactly where I've been going wrong. I have viewed my own happiness as a goal and pictured myself doing specific things in order to get there as quickly as possible.

So, I decided to make a change.

I don't know what it is that made me alter my attitude towards my own happiness, but I've now realised that sometimes it's okay to be unhappy, even for no reason whatsoever. I've stopped worrying about what I can do to feel content the entire time and have instead begun to embrace all of my emotions, and accepted that happiness often comes and goes.

If you worked out how many times something made you upset in one day, in comparison to how many things made you happy, would you have spent most of that day feeling happy or sad? Until recently, I've focused too much on what makes me unhappy which has affected my ability to be grateful for so many things in life. Now I make a conscious effort to take note of the positive, rather than the negative.

Right now, happiness to me is the excitement of my travels in the New Year, music that touches my soul and the realisation that I can be happy without relying solely on other people.

If you're always searching for your own happiness and worrying about what you need to do to attain it, you'll miss what's right in front of you.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are...