What is happiness?

“Happiness is a journey, not a destination!”

You’ve probably heard this saying before, but have you given any real consideration to it?
Many people feel entitled to happiness and so are often discouraged when things don’t play
out as they had expected going as far as to question the pursuit of happiness itself.

What makes me (and probably you) happy

Life unfolds differently for most of us, but there is one thing we all agree on – we all want to
feel happy, but how do we achieve that? Personally, I don’t think about what makes me
happy, I just do things I derive satisfaction from such as pursuing my degree, improving my
French, learning to do 20 pull-ups, trying to be better to those around me. All of these
things make me happy and I can’t really say why, because they are not something tangible,
instead they are just tasks that when performed successfully offer a feeling of gratification.

“So, what happens when you fail?”

Our culture is embedded with the idea of instant gratification and so for many people this
idea of working to achieve happiness is unnatural because it entails the possibility of failure.
I believe failure to achieve something instead of despair should bring encouragement, it
should make you improve your approach to the task. Beyond a doubt, this is hard to grasp,
as there is so much you could be doing instead of trying again and again on some futile task
that may or may not make you happy – you could be surfing the web, watching a movie,
shopping. In the long term, however, having a clear goal and progressing towards it is what
happiness consists of and many people are aware of that.

Why you should not doubt happiness is right around the corner
Persistent failure can make people so dejected as to declare the whole strife itself pointless.
Feelings of dejection just like their opposites – joy and excitement – are ephemeral and
putting yourself in the right mindset is the key to overcoming or enhancing them. So instead
of focusing on what you did wrong, and how you can never be happy again because you
failed, try to think of ways to overcome your frustration – start over or look for a different
route. Happiness truly is a journey, albeit a difficult one.