My Views about Happiness

During these past few years, I’ve been wondering what happiness exactly means to me and where I have to look for it. There are a few thoughts I came up with, for example:

• I’ll be happy when I’m finally done with my research
•  I’ll be happy when I’ve graduated
• I’ll be happy when I get a job
• I’ll be happy when I finally find someone special to me
• I’ll be happy when I get married
• I’ll be happy when I become rich

and many other things starting with “I’ll be happy when/if _____________”.

Then suddenly, I realized that I was being foolish. I’ve defined my happiness with things that happen in the future and I didn’t even consider about things in the present. What about the current me? Am I living an unhappy life?

So instead of thinking about what WILL make me happy, I chose to list some of the current, small things that delight me:

• Waking up to a new day with no headache
• My family being in good health
• Family members to talk to
• Friends to joke around with
• Getting back in touch with old friends + meeting & keeping in touch with current ones
• Getting to know new people with pleasant characters
• A home to return to
• Electricity to power my home
• Internet connection to access web pages
• My hobbies
• My own issues/business to work on
• My laptop & handset functioning well
• Good food to enjoy
• Travelling
• Enough money to spend
• Seeing well-behaved kids & pets

In other words, I’ve actually been blessed with so many small things that bring me joy. To me, being happy is a matter of accepting my current condition, no matter how good or bad it is. It’s up to my mind to regard something I do as enjoyable or mind-exhausting, so why don’t I try to enjoy doing something that I didn’t enjoy before?

I’m currently working on my bachelor’s thesis and sometimes things just won’t go the way I want them to. It seems like before one problem is solved, another one comes in and I have to divide my brain to concentrate on so many things at a time. But well…I kind of enjoy being busy working on this project. Hopefully, I’ll be able to continuously motivate myself until the end of the project.