What is it about happiness, that makes it seem elusive? The concept itself just sometimes seems too hard to grasp. Aloof to its meaning, it easily slips through the fingers like sand rather than be concrete like stone.
At times, it just seems so distant. I dare ask, ‘What does happiness mean to you?’ Of course, this is rhetoric and its individualised. There’s no one size fits all, or a formula that cuts across to define happiness for everyone equally. The differences simply make us unique.
Every day, we make various kinds of decisions all in the pursuit of this. Time and again, we’re told to be happy, to do whatever makes us happy. But why is it sometimes hard and just seems all too difficult to choose happy?
Being happy should be a default setting or some kind of switch or button you can readily flip on as a mode. But smiling always when there’s not much to smile about just seems psychotic and makes one look like a broken mannequin. We’re humans, were we robots, we’d be easily wired a certain way, sadly we’re not fixed or locked into expressing only one kind of emotion. We’re such complex species, capable of demonstrating diverse feelings… We’re entitled to that much.
The pursuit of happiness seems like a never-ending struggle, a constant battle with no destination in sight. When one milestone is attained, another target is almost simultaneously put up before our eyes. Hence, the rat race continues, much like a hamster on the wheel. We keep chasing after this thing, but the more we chase, it seems the farther that it gets away. It’s not something that can be bottled up or quantified. It’s much like the wind, it passes by every so often.
Having known this, how about learning to be content in the now? Knowing that human wants are insatiable by design, getting what we want at the moment, only paves way for wanting even much more.
Greed. Mentioned among the seven deadly sins, has become second nature to mankind. It fuels all kinds of desires and pushes us to go to diverse lengths to attain. If not tamed, it can be all-consuming. By all means, there’s nothing wrong with ambition but there are two extremes on its spectrum, complacency being the second is equally disadvantageous.
The pursuit of happiness becomes a rather fruitless venture when it robs us of something much deeper like joy. Meant to be a state of mind and not merely a fleeting emotion. Being grounded in joy helps to keep the balance when life rocks our boat. Our joy cannot afford to be anchored to temporal things if it is indeed to last as it should. Find that which is real and can be eternal.
Love and Grace,
© Zizi, 2021.
Image Credits: Unsplash
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