ALL I WANT IS TO BE HAPPY!

Happiness. It’s what we all want, right? I mean, the search for happiness is a lifelong quest, and something that we all get caught up in. In fact, some people spend their entire lives looking for happiness and seeing it as some goal that they will reach when this or that falls into place perfectly, but trust me on this, happiness isn’t “there” it is here and now.

Happiness isn’t a destination or acquisition, happiness is the sunrise, or the laugh of a child. It is my new kitten, Stella, tumbling while chasing a ball across the floor. Happiness is having a cup of coffee in the morning with someone you love, or having a nice hot meal waiting for you on a cold winter’s night.

Happiness is a culmination of what IS happening, but for so many of us, we are too busy focused on what it will look like when we get there, that we forget to take the time to appreciate it’s beginnings happening all around us.

Samuel Johnson, a great British writer of the second half of the 18th century, wrote in one of his essays that the nature of desire makes the acquisition of happiness impossible, “we desire, we pursue, we obtain, we are satiated; we desire something else and begin a new pursuit.” But it doesn’t have to be that way. Happiness is now. We just need to stop and appreciate it.

What is your definition of happiness? What makes your heart beat fast and makes you smile?
For many of my clients, that’s a tough question. So I will ask you what I ask them, and that is to make a study of the happy people you know, and pick at least three or four. Now in your journal after you identify them, ask yourself, what is different about you and them? It’s important to take note of what you notice, because that is the key to your own path to happiness.

Chances are the things you notice are what you need to learn – that’s why you notice it! I mean, honestly, I could ask three clients to look at the same three people and they would all come up with completely different answers. It’s the things that stand out to you that resonate, and that define what you see as happiness. And THAT is where you start! Don’t give too much weight to what the research on happiness points to, or take anyone’s word for what creates happiness. This is your own personal study to determine what happiness means to you!
Once you identify the things you recognize about happiness, get busy looking for ways to bring those things into your life!

In Rasselas, Samuel Johnson, writes about the endless quest for meaning—indeed for happiness—in human life. And in the last chapter, affirms that we must not abandon our quest for happiness. On the contrary, for us to remain healthy, productive and sane, we must continue our quest.

Taking the time to catalog happiness traits is a great place to start making happiness not just a quest, but your way of life. So please take some time to get your journal out and get busy!