We have heard so much and by so many on what happiness is and where and how to look for it. Some say it is achievable when you become a parent when you bring a separate part of yourself into this world and watch it grow and become a man or woman. Some say it is when you achieve all of your goals and all the plans you made come to reality and become touchable. Some say it is by searching for God, your inner self, and watch yourself grow as a human. They say many, many things and I think they are all right about it. I know, how can everyone be right when they think totally different things about the same exact topic? For the simple reason, that happiness is something different to all of us. It was something different to my parents, who felt great joy and happiness bringing me, my brother, and my sister into this world, do everything as best as they could to bring us up. They took happiness from our small and little moments of joy and great pride when we took our own paths in life. That was and still is for happiness, the true one. It is totally different from a monk's happiness. To him being happy means following the word of God or what he believes God's plan is for him. He believes that he is part of a bigger picture that he has a mission and that is the reason he is alive, a mission that he will try his best to accomplish. Maybe he will fail, who knows, but he will live his entire life trying to get there, trying to fulfill his destiny and that for him will be being happy it does not matter if he makes it or not. It is not about the destination. To someone else, happiness is being notorious, successful and the object of envy to many, because by doing that they feel alive, appreciated, and accomplished, their way of being happy.
What is happiness to me? I am afraid I cannot give a precise answer to it because I can only tell based on the life I have lived so far, I can only tell my tale and you will be the judge of it. To me being happy means most of all seeing that everyone I care about is happy, to me it means giving as much as I can from myself to those people the most precious thing that I have, my time. I have discovered that it truly makes me feel alive when I give without expecting anything in return, because like that I have done everything without selling pieces of myself, but because I wanted to do everything just as I did. It means stopping in the middle of the street just to pet a small puppy and see how hard he wags his tail and looks at me with those precious eyes that express the purest innocence. I have found happiness in the smallest of things, like reading a great book, writing a piece of a journal like I am doing right now when everything ceases to exist and it is just me, my thoughts, and this journal. There is no past, no future just this moment here where I am undressing my soul and putting it into words that everyone can understand. Here and now there are no plans for the future to stress me about, there is no past that I am dwelling on and no shadows following me, right now I closed the door to them and I am all alone, into my peaceful little world where I am God and as such I can create out of thin air. Here there is nothing beyond me, my precious soul and mind and by using just this little, I saw that I can create anything that I want, anything that means something to me, anything that matters. This was a revelation to me because we are accustomed that happiness can be achieved when you own many things, live in a great big house drive the best cars, and be surrounded by many people. Have the perfect partner that will take you on lavish vacations and be the perfect knight. Well, I now know that to me it is a simple smile, a puppy wagging its tail and wanting to play with me, or by waking someone up by the smell of coffee in the morning. Because to be happy, to me it means to be imperfect, accepted for who you are, and given the opportunity to share the little moments, those moments that will never share the camera's spotlight. In the end, it is all about the journey, not the destination.