Exactly What Is Happiness

It has been described as an over-riding joy. So tell me, who was it that rode over Joy and was happy about that?

Seriously though, joy can be defined as something that happenes in the here and now, not the what was when we were younger. Joy can be seen in a mother’s eyes giving birth to her child. Joy can be winning the lottery. Joy can be like having the best sex of your life that no other partner could ever measure up to.

But is that happiness? Yes and no. The baby grows, the mother becomes (along with the father), a teacher, a guide, more so than a parent, the happiness once felt; now, it many respects becomes an obvious duty. Win the lottery? Hooray for whoever, but at what price? Privacy is gone, and relatives you never knew you had, climb out of the muck to ask for a buck (or two-thousand). Best sex ever? But then there’s the thing of maintaining that level of “best ever”. Eventually, it won’t add up to a dozen doughnuts and a good bag of chips.

Here is an enlightenment for you ... happiness is an overall appreciation of one’s life as a whole. Happiness is how you see yourself. Not as other’s do ... just you. I am reminded of the statement, “you are what you eat”.

If you eat cookies and ice-cream this would translate that you are as sweet a person as can be. If you eat foods that don’t set well to your taste ot stomach, you will be irritated, grumpy and more than likely ill. See the point made here?

It’s how you see yourself, not how other’s see you, for really, in the long run, other people see of you only what you choose for them to see.

There are valid claims that there has been a transition over time from emphasis on the happiness of virtue to the virtue of happiness. Happiness may be said to be a relative concept; the source of happiness for one person might not be the source of happiness for another. And to co-join this with the word love, like love, happiness can neither be touched ot tasted, only felt and seen through the eyes of those who become happy.

And not surprisingly, not all cultures seek to maximise happiness, and some cultures are averse to happiness.

What does this tell us? We can’t make everyone like us all the time no more than we can make everyone around us happy all the time, but one thing we can do; find our own nitch, and have the happiness we deserve for ourselves regardless what anyone else thinks.

I have read on Prose so many disheartening pleas of angiush, and within those words, I read hope for a better tomorrow, a better life, and a place of acceptance. What do all these posts lack? Happiness.

Happiness for many it seems isn’t all that much of a used word any longer and it needs to come back into vogue, if for no other reason, than yourself.

This comes from Bob Marley’s - Don’t Worry, Be Happy:

“In every life we have some trouble

But when you worry you make it double,

don’t worry, be happy.”

Find your rising sun, your setting moon and your own place among the stars, and call it your space. That is happiness alone.