Are you chasing happiness? What is happiness? What does it mean to be happy? The answers to these questions are as many as the people existing on the earth, but there is no doubt that happiness is the illusion for excellence of humanity and each one of us.
We all want to achieve happiness, the one with a capital H. Some of us may want to live in a paradise of Hellenic type where souls live in total harmony, while others, perhaps, envy those who resemble happy puppets with a smile perpetually on their face, probably false and hypocritical. Lastly, there are those who want to conquer the state of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
Personally, I have certain distrust with respect to these ideas of absolute happiness, which I think find a spot only in fairy tales. I think are only stereotypes that society gave us, to put us into and keep, in the character of Alice in Wonderland, which continues to run after the rabbit without ever reaching it. They are myths with the sole purpose to entertain people with the promise of a wonderful future while they are suffering a bad present.
I prefer the kind of happiness built gradually by each of us in our daily lives, the happiness that comes from being, and not from possessing or appearing.
Let’s take some time to reflect on what it means for us to be happy. But without being inspired by a completely abstract and empty concept of happiness, we just have to simply remember those moments where we felt truly happy. Probably we will remember of the mundane moments of our daily life and the simple things that made us feel good, situations that did not require a lot of effort or material resources to materialize. In those moments we hadn’t everything we wanted, but we enjoyed what we had and we did.
Being happy is simply feeling satisfaction and pleasure for what we are and what we do. Happiness is something as simple and amazing as the joy of being alive. The material things or the way in which we are considered by others are not what make a difference in our lives, but the persons who stand by our side, the quality of our relationships, in addition to our ability to make sure that everything we do all the time is really special and unique.
However, how many times we forget to think in these terms? How many times we let ourselves be transformed into slaves of habits that preclude us the possibility of developing new interests? How many times we blame bad luck without realizing that at this very moment we can change course? Too often we lose the perspective of what is really important in our lives.
How many times we woke up happy for the simple fact of having a beloved one next to us? How many times we felt happy for the simple fact of being in perfectly good health? It seems that people find it easier to be sad, depressed and complaining, rather than accept this simple and small daily happiness offered from being alive.
We should always remember that happiness is a personal decision, it’s not a place hidden around the corner, but neither an unattainable utopia. Happiness is a journey that we take every day, is not a goal but rather the perception of change and personal growth that we experience along the path of our life, and is a positive and optimistic attitude towards life.
So let’s defend our right to be happy, that of the others, the habits, the fears, the “I don’t have to” but also and above all, let’s defend our own happiness.
