Finding Happiness

In the past two years, I've learned a lot about happiness. Happiness is both a feeling and a state of being. It is possible to feel happy and be desperately unhappy. It is also possible to feel unhappy and be happy. Somedays it's easy to mistake the feeling of happiness for the state of happiness. It's also easy to feel happy when nothing is wrong, but when something shakes that happiness and that feeling fades, the unhappiness resting under the facade threatens to become overwhelming. When under the facade lies the state of happiness, the facade begins to fade and happiness permeates every aspect of your life. When you are happy, it remains very difficult to not be happy.

While so many of us get caught up in the quest for the "holy grail" of happiness, I think we may be missing the one thing that prevents us from finding it. We think that happiness is elusive because we look for it in money, in possessions, in homes and in spouses. We externalize the search for happiness, projecting the souce of happiness onto objects and people around us. We look to others for the answers to our questions and we seek out completion with the life of another. As we seek and quest and follow and strive, we neglect to look to the one place that can grant us happiness. Within ourselves.

It can be easier not to look at ourselves most days. It can be painful or too hard. It's easy to blame others for out lack of happiness, thinking that "If only I was like them, I would be happy," while the reality is, you don't have to go far to find your happiness. You carry it inside wherever you are. The courageous part of the quest for happiness comes from the ability to look inside yourself and acknowledge that you are responsible for your happiness.

It's so much simpler to look to someone else for happiness. I've heard people say "They make me so happy," and the only thing I want to ask is "Were you happy before?" The reality is that it's fantastic to find someone who makes you happy and it's truly special, but if you weren't happy before you met this fantastic person, you won't be happy with them, and you certainly won't be happy without them. To make someone the source of your happiness is dangerous because then your happiness can be taken away. In order to hang onto happiness forever, you must have the courage to give the gift of happiness to yourself.