Happiness?

Before reading this, take out a piece of paper and complete this sentence with 5 things: "Happiness is..." 

Keep that piece of paper by you until you're done reading this. 

For a while now I have had this obsession with happiness. For as long as I remember, I've been trying to define happiness in my life. I had an epiphany recently about my own happiness and I was finally inspired to write about it because I found an old notebook I kept from the Spring of 2010 to February of 2011. This journal holds a poetry-filled journey of my love life and choosing between Michael and Phil (two major ex-boyfriends), along with my first children's story, and sketches of the tattoo I now hold on top of my right lung. As I was reading through it, I stumbled across two lists I had made. One was made April 16, 2010 and the next June 6, 2010.  Both lists started with the words "Happiness is...", but they were completed by me and either Phil or Michael. We would take turns finishing that phrase with something that made us happy until we reached the end of the page. I'll touch on a few of the points we made...

With Michael and Me:

Happiness is...

• A part of me 
• Warm salty air
• Cool rain on a warm day
• Making someone else smile
• A good hug from my mom
• Floating in the middle of a diving well
• Following your heart
• That feeling after the first kiss.
• Writing
• A Journey

With Philip and Me:

• Being a velociraptor  (Side note: I often act like dinosaurs)
• Winning
• Getting lost in a book
• Coaching
• Being at peace in the water
• Holding Solomon
• Holding any baby
• knowing that we're back to us again.

After reading these lists, I smiled and thought back on the good memories I had with them, but also how my view on happiness has changed in the last two years, and more particularly in the last 9 months. Some of the things in those lists still reign true in making me happy. In fact, my happy place is still floating in the middle of a diving well. However, those lists don't even come close to recognizing what will truly make me happy today and the last 9 months have been spent asking myself what is motivating me to do the things I do and how they will make me happy. 

I'm currently dating someone that has redefined how I look at a lot of aspects in my life. A lot of people have asked what I like about him and I have friends that live far away that ask me to tell them about him. The statement that I use across the board is, "He makes me ask the right questions." I'm not saying that he's a save-all-wonderful-life-altering person, but I am saying that knowing him and picking his brain has, in fact, altered my reality. For example, when him and I first met, the topic of having children came up. As my readers can tell, I have always wanted children. In fact, I have always thought the sole purpose of my life was to have children. When I relayed this to him, I remember the most simple statement coming out of his mouth. I don't remember the exact wording but he basically asked the question, "Why do you want to have kids?" or "Why do people want to have children?" or something along those lines... 

I sure look happy, huh?

At the time, I dismissed it, and answered with some joke statement along the lines of, "How cool would it be to have a mini-me running around?", but as time passed (and as I attended my parenting class at school) that question festered down deep inside me until I had a life-altering moment. I'll never forget where I was because it was as if a huge fog lifted from my eyes, and I was Alice coming back from Wonderland. I was just leaving my parenting class, and I was walking across campus, and all of a sudden the random thought popped into my head: Having children won't make me happy. I actually stopped walking and took a breath, then smiled ear to ear. I had figured it out: having children wasn't my answer to happiness. 

I'm someone to give advice. I love helping friends see things from a fresh perspective. So, when I have friends coming to me saying that finding love is going to be their end-all solution, I always tell them that they're not going to find that peace in anyone but themselves. It's been said that you can't love someone until you love yourself. In a way, this is completely true because you can't equate your happiness to dating, marrying, or being loved by someone. If that person leaves you, where does your happiness go? With them. This is a point that I have always pointed out to people. In fact, I once told the person that I'm currently dating that he will never find that "it-factor" in anyone because it doesn't come from them. He can only find it in himself. But the day I was walking across campus, I realized I hadn't been listening to my own advice; I was just waiting around for a child to come along to make me happy. I was going to equate my happiness to taking care of another human being. That's the reason I wanted a child, and if that's the selfish reason I was going to have one, then I didn't deserve to have children. 

This is where I get into my spiel: 

People go around looking for a meaning for their life. Some find it in religion, hobbies, sports, family, volunteering, substance use, and other life-filling areas. But when it comes down to the nitty-gritty "meaning" of life, is it not to just be happy? Doesn't each one of the things that give us  a reason to live make us happy? If you Google search the definition of "happiness," it gives you the following definition: "state of well- being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy." In that definition, you get an entire range of happiness. You can be content in a situation, or you can feel intense joy. Personally, I would like to live life feeling intense joy. 

There is also great debate over happiness being a choice, or a chanced event. I've flip-flopped back and forth on what I believe, but I'm to the point now that I whole-heartedly know that happiness is a choice. One thing I've learned from my father is that I want to love my job. He works really hard, but I never hear him say anything good about his job. Maybe he's like the news in the aspect that he only reports the bad things, but it has always made me sad for him that he doesn't enjoy his job. I would get so aggravated wondering, why don't you just choose a different job? It may be hard at first and a struggle, but don't you want to be happy? I wanted him to choose to be happy! A goal that I made a long time ago (and one that I am paying for by changing my majors and my many years in school) is that I want to have a job where I am happy. I want to be excited to go to work. I found this excitement in teaching elementary aged students. This is something that I have chosen to do to be happy. 

Make the choice!
Credit: www.toddswanderings.com

I didn't always think I had the power to choose to be happy though. I struggled with clinical depression for a while and thought to myself: I have a disease that doesn't allow me to be happy, so no, happiness is not a choice. I was living life at the bottom spectrum of happiness- I was content. I could get through day to day life and be okay, but what sort of life was that? However, recently I found myself wanting to go off the medication I was on for my depression. So, I did. I made that choice, and through making that choice, I began to have a full range of emotions again. Unfortunately, in the process of going off anti-depressants, I felt like all the emotion that had been held back for the last 6 years hit all at once. There was actually one night in which I spent in hour rapidly switching between intense crying and hysterical laughter. It was so bizarre, but I'm sure it would have been hilarious to witness. Since then my emotions now have their rightful places, but in that range of emotions, I experienced intense joy. But that was the key- I got to choose to be happy. 

Side note: The best, ironic part of all of this? I've always wanted the song "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands" played at my funeral so that everyone can remember me being happy, and to remind them to keep themselves happy. 

The big question here is what gives you that feeling of intense joy? I've led up to this idea, but now I'm going to spell it out for you:

When your happiness depends solely on what you do, and the choices you make, what is going to make you happy? 

Take a look at that list that you wrote at the beginning of this entry. How many of those things have something to do with someone else in your life? Would you still be happy if that person wasn't in your life? 

I know that I have readers from all different walks of life and of all different ages, and I'm curious to know about what makes each one of you happy? How much of your life have you depended on others to make you happy? Are you living life just content or are you experiencing intense joy? Rewrite your list of 5 things that complete the statement, "Happiness is..." Now put it somewhere that you can see it everyday. If you have those things, be thankful and smile when you read it. If you're still working towards being happy, let that be your inspiration! There is no reason that you shouldn't be happy. 

The happiest day of my life
 was spent here: Gruyeres, Switzerland.

Coming to these conclusions personally, has left me excited about life. I'm excited to live. I know what makes me happy: Traveling. Teaching. Experiencing new things. And being in Switzerland. Because I know what makes me happy, I have a direction in my life now. Granted, this doesn't mean I'm going to throw love out the window, because it's nice to have someone I care about along with me, but I'm not going to solely focus on love being the thing that will bring me happiness. This narrows my focus to one thing now: School. It will provide me the degree I need to teach, and the money I need to travel and hopefully someday move to Switzerland. With those things in my life, I know I will be happy. 

Maybe someday I'll get married and have children, but I know that right now, I don't absolutely need that in my life to have meaning and happiness.