Acc. to you, what is happiness? Do you have a belief in true happiness?
There is no universal definition of happiness, and so to me, it’s about freedom and mastery. Other people may have more specific answers, such as spending quality time with family, traveling freely around the world, contentment, enjoying every moment of life, or feeling connected to nature. Everyone has a different perspective on happiness. Being a lifestyle blogger, I frequently write on this topic, so let’s discuss.
Here are some other potential angles a person could take to gauge how happy their life is:
1) Finding extraordinary joy in ordinary things: To be honest, for me, the definition of happiness never remains constant. In winter, I love to sleep more than usual and in the summer months, I like to wake up early in the morning for a workout. There’s the happiness that I’ve done the work I needed to do to reach my goals, and then the happiness that comes from meeting a goal. I find that different, basic things switch around to the forefront depending on the time of year, time of day, my current life circumstances, and more, so I’ve come to accept that my feelings will change on just about anything.
2) Spending time with people who have a positive mindset. I usually keep my distance from pessimistic people, unless they’re funny or coming at it from a position that feels warranted. I am always ready to help and counsel people in a difficult place in their lives, but mingling in a discussion with such people is often a waste of time. It’s important to be choosy about who you socialize and associate with.
3) Accepting the way life is. The ability to say “Okay, that didn’t go the way I expected, but that’s okay. I have five other things I can try to still get what I want before I’m stuck.” is incredibly powerful at not just making you happy, but giving you peace of mind that such feelings will last.
4) Enjoying the creativity of Mother Nature. This is more abstract, but it does hit me sometimes. If I get in the right mindset, I’ll start to enjoy anything, from the way grass and sunshine feels to the way the human body builds muscle when it gets sore and becomes stronger. There’s a kind of logic to everything that I find appealing.
5) Happiness, to me, is also seeing fresh opportunities every day. A study found that we spend roughly 95 percent of our days doing things on autopilot. We do things in a specific way for no particular reason, it’s all habitual. Once you realize that, you also realize that you could do something different. You really could, and it wouldn’t hurt you. So why not try it, just for the sake of variety? You might just enjoy it.
Regarding true happiness, yes, I strongly believe in it. To me it does not come from money or fame, rather, it comes from having healthy relationships. Since I have been through financially tough times in my life, I was still happy when I didn’t focus on that, but on people. I have also closely observed the lives of rich people thinking that they need a certain amount of wealth, influence, etc. to be content, but that isn’t true. Money, influence, etc. are tools to higher goals that deliver actual happiness.
To finish up, I would like to draw your attention to a very common and dangerous misconception. For some people, happiness truly does equal wealth. No doubt, money is fun, and brings security with it, but those feelings do not last. To that end, I wrote an article called The Homeless Millionaire: How Making Money Is Only Half the Battle. You can also explore the Knowledge Base section on my website for other similar answers.
Good Luck!
Thanks,
Cleo