How to Be Happy(?)

Are you happy? What does being happy feel like to you? What does being happy mean to you? What do you think would make you happier than you are now? LIke, really. Pause and think about this.

As for me, I believe happiness is not necessarily an emotional state of being. It’s not being in an amazing mood all the time and always feeling good about my life. First of all, I believe that being sad is just as important as being happy. In fact, I don’t think one can exist without the other. Why would you even need to have a word for being happy if you never felt sad? That’s just the way it would be. That would just be life. I also believe that sadness and other closely related emotions have taught me more than happiness ever has. Happiness has given me the feel-goods. The feel-goods are the metaphorical carrots that appeal to my eye. They motivate me to chase after them. They give me a reason to keep going.

Happiness to me like a tropical forest, rich with all the colors of emotion and peaceful sunrises and chaotic rainstorms and rampant, messy undergrowth and reaching vines of learning. Happiness feels like the life force within me being intoxicated with love and desire, crazed with passion and life. It’s being alive and being grateful for every moment.

I also think that happiness can only exist within my mind. After all, that is where I perceive it. I create happiness in my mind when I am thinking the way I want to and I am living the life that is true to the deepest parts of myself.

Now, am I happy? No, not all the time. Not frequently, even. But I taste it every so often and it is my eternal addiction.

Damn, these questions are good.

Last one, what would make me happier than I am now?

I think there is a lot of things that would make me feel better on the inside and the outside. I am always bursting with new, exciting methods and strategies and areas of focus to make this happen.

However, in all my time of obsessing over self-improvement, I think I skipped the most important step. Loving myself. Loving myself, and accepting who I am, as I am. But I don’t know how to do that. I know how to craft the perfect workout routine or create a healthy diet. I know how to develop a habitually clean and organized home. The finished to-do list, a stable budget, a job well done, a rich social life- but none of this makes me love myself any more. And not being where I want to be threatens to make me love myself less.

How do I learn how to love myself? If I can do that, I think I can learn how to be happy.

Do you agree? Do you think that loving yourself deeply will lead you to the happiness you imagine and desire? How would that be enough?

I may not have figured out how to love and accept myself, but I have well-theorized suspicions as to why that would make me happy.

Think about any other person in this world that you love the most. Think about how it feels when you see them talk about things they’re excited about. Isn’t that so beautiful and inspiring? What about when you see them working hard at something, don’t you feel proud of them? Isn’t their effort and passion magnetic? How do you feel when you see them get hurt? Does it upset you? Do you want to protect them? You know you can’t be there for them all the time, but you want to do the best you can, when you can. Who does that for you? Who feels that way about you? It feels so good when someone cares about you like that, doesn’t it? I feel like that’s all I ever want.

I’ve gotten it from a lot of people, too. A lot of beautiful people have shown me selfless, passionate, almost blindly stupid and unconditional love. It feels so good when that’s happening. When I’m passionately in love with someone, and they are in love with me-platonically or not- the world is beautiful no matter what part of it I look at. No one can touch me or hurt me, because I am fierce and unstoppable. I swear I can physically feel my love for them and their love for me inflate and swell up my heart within my chest. I can feel it.

But when they’re not there to protect me and accept me and admire me and make me feel excited about being alive, does that mean I’m not protected? Am I not admired? Am I still loveable? How do I know unless someone is loving me or I am convinced that someone loves me? That someone loves me so much that I can feel it, even when they’re not there? Surely if someone loves me-enough- I am loveable, right?

What about when they or I move to a different city, or we break up or stop being best friends or move on from each other or change jobs, or just can’t spend as much time together as we used to? Will their love be enough to give the energy that that love gives me? That energy that I need? To live?

Without a doubt in my mind, it’s never enough. Never has been. They give me a taste of the feel-goods, for sure. SO good. But I know it’s not enough, and I am convinced that I will only find true enjoyment and value in all of my life when I find it in myself.

So, I think to be happy, you gotta truly, deeply, unconditionally, love yourself. I’m not quite sure how that works yet, but.. here’s to trying.