Find happiness

Joy isn’t the same as being happy. Joy is like a rare cherry on top that we get to experience in fleeting moments, without preparation. Happiness however, is something we can acquire on our own.

To feel happy, you must feel content. To feel content you must first feel gratitude. So, start or end your days by listing things you feel grateful for. It can be things you’ve bought or received by others, but it can also be appreciation of nature, of validating compliments or getting a need met like solitude, or even your basic needs. It can also be what you have achieved. An extraordinary thing then happens. You receive more to be grateful for! What will happen is that you will learn how to notice things more and this good energy will multiply and generate more, especially if you also give more. Soon, you’re going to think about what you would like to write down when you come back home and see how easy it is to list these things. How does this makes you feel? Happy of course!

But, if you struggle with not really feeling grateful, you might need to first create peace within. We do this through meditation and/or prayers. When you sit with yourself in silence, you enter your own inner space where you can listen to your thoughts and notice your feelings more clearly. You’re not your thoughts or your emotions, you are a being having them. Who is this being? Get in touch with that. From this sense of inner peace, you now can choose how to look at the world. What are you going to look for? Things to be grateful for?

Happiness therefore also is a choice, an approach or attitude (To me, it’s even making one!) towards life.