Happiness?

I have often wondered what people seek when they believe what they want is happiness or love.  To define happiness is something that is indefinable, in my opinion.  It is said in terms of many things, but to each their own.  To each person, happiness is only understood from their own heart.  Many people will try to tell you this or that is wrong, or that isn't really happiness, or you aren't supposed to feel that when doing such and if you perceive it as happiness, you are screwed up.  Now, before we think - murder - or anything crazy like that, let's digress back.  Anyway, to expect a shared sense of happiness is to find another who has touched your heart.  While the heart is associated with love, what is to say that it can't be synonymous with happiness as well?  All emotions are associated with the brain, of course, however, when you feel what it is to be in love or to be truly happy, you feel it elsewhere.  And this deferred sensation spreads warmth and tranquility throughout the body.

To know happiness is to be in touch with oneself.  To know love, you must be able to love yourself first.  So many people believe that the love of another will make them whole, but I do not agree.  If  you are able to love yourself then, and only then can you really appreciate the love of another.  I think that's why this society has so many divorces and so much unhappiness.  We are slammed with ideas of the perfect wedding, of TV shows like the Bachelor, of ideas that we are never enough with magazines and medicine for every little thing.  I think we've lost the idea that loving oneself is just as important as loving another.  After all, how can we know what loving another feels like if we do not have love for ourselves?

Once this personal acceptance occurs, it is possible to recognize the ability to find your inner happiness in someone else.  The beauty of love is that is transcends all and it knows all.  It knows pain, but forgives, it knows compassion, kindness, worry, doubt, joy, peace, trust, calmness; to know all of these gives us as individuals an opportunity to learn.  In learning we associate good things to happiness.  In loving another there is a great risk of heartache or of failure, but with that great risk, the serendipitous possibility of finding it is practically overpowering.

Sometimes, however, I believe that people seek out the wrong thing when they say they are looking for happiness.  This is because happiness is not a "thing" or and "action".  Rather, it is something that must come from inside.  If you are not in touch with your inner self, if you do not love yourself, your concept of happiness will never be fulfilled.  I believe we make our own heaven and we also have the ability to make our own hell.  Those individuals seek to find things to replace that hell, saying it is happiness they lack, however, is this true?  It's a frame of mind; there are things that bring happiness, of course, and understanding these things help to bring our paths closer to happiness.  

For example, what is to understand the beauty of a lullaby from a mother's heart?  What is it to understand a sunset?  We can see the sunset, and we can hear a lullaby, but to understand them you must search deep inside yourself and understand what those things bring to your own happiness.  

For me, sunrises and sunsets are beautiful.  The universe opens and closes a new day with beauty, and that gives me hope.  No matter how horrible things can be in one day, look outside and see that the day ends with something beautiful.  It also brings a sense of stability, like the stars or the mood or the sun.  No matter how scary or crazy or stressful a day can be the moon is always out at night, the stars always flicker, the sun rises with beauty and the day is closed with the beauty of a sunset.  I understand that part of myself, why I love them, and I enjoy each and every one of them every day, they bring me happiness, because I've taken the time to understand what they mean to me.  Also, for me, whenever I hear You Are My Sunshine or My Favorite Things, I always am taken back to falling asleep while my mom sung them to me.  While I've sought to find copies of those songs to have now, none of them ever compare to my mom's voice late at night.  There was just something about her touch as I was falling asleep, and her voice in song that comforted me.  The way she sung them was perfect to me, and brings me happiness and peacefulness whenever I try and remember her voice.  Every time I have trouble sleeping I try and remember how I felt at those times, and it always helps me to drift off.

The point of all this, I suppose, is to empower anyone reading this to love themselves.  Find things that make you truly happy, for yourself before anyone else, and then share them.  Teach someone what it means to love yourself, yes it is possible.  Give someone a hug, listen to them when they need to talk, tell them to love themselves for who they are.  If everyone understood this, I think there would be a lot less sad people.  If you can't find love for yourself, when you have to live with yourself every day of your life, than that would be a very sad life.  Those people just don't look hard enough inside themselves.  So look deep and love you, find happiness, find love, and live it, all of it.

Song of the Day:  Those Sweet Words - Norah Jones

Lyrics of the Day:  

"They shine a little brighter, the feel a little more

They touch your life in ways no one has ever done before

They love a little stronger, they live to give their best

They make our lives so blest, so why do they go so soon?

The ones with souls so beautiful..."