Define what happiness is to you. What are your expectations of happiness? I personally realized that I had a distorted ideal of what happiness is. Happiness isn’t about doing back flips everyday. Life is an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes we are happy, other times we will be sad, angry, frustrated, etc. To me, happiness is something I feel on any given day. To say that I’m unhappy means that I’m unhappy everyday, period. However, what about when I do something I enjoy like going for a run along the beach, or cooking, or when I spend time with my friends / cousins chatting and watching movies / tv series or going out with them. Is it appropriate to say that I’m unhappy even though I’m enjoying what I’m doing? Remember, it’s about what you are feeling right now, not something in the past, this is brooding. If we dwell on all the things that make us unhappy then naturally we will feel miserable.
What I find helpful is to engage in what I’m doing, rather than letting my mind wander off. This way I can isolate my feelings specifically to what I’m doing. What I discovered was that I’m actually happy, just not as happy as I would like to be (yet). There’s a difference.
In saying all this, it’s not something that will change overnight. It will take persistence. But being aware enables us to make the necessary changes.
I will close with a question I once asked myself that helped me make an important realization: If we can’t see the good things we already have, then how will we see the good things we don’t have?
