My Way to Happiness©

Yesterday someone asked me if I was happy. I had to think about it for a minute because happiness doesn’t come that easy. Happiness has many components You don’t want to just quickly answer, yes, I’m happy, if you truly may not be.

For me happiness is about where I live, what my neighbors are like, where I shop, what there is to do for entertainment, how easy it is to travel around my neighborhood, how safe it is, etc. I’m sure you get what I’m trying to say. Of course, when someone asks you if you’re happy, they don’t want a truthful answer, right? Who has the kind of time to listen to that answer in person. However, if you have stumbled across this notation and are taking the time to read if over, that means you’re somewhat curious about what I have to say.

When I start each day I’m at my happiest. Nothing has yet occurred to blemish my ability to smile. There are no tears of frustration because I fear I might let someone down. There are days when murphy’s law has more control than I do as all things that can go wrong do go wrong at which time happiness is not something I know. This is not to say that I get stuck on the little things, because I don’t. My beef is when I want to relax and I do everything right and no matter what I do something blocks my happiness.

So, like many people, I sit and attempt to watch TV as many do when they want to relax. We know there is no other purpose for tv aside from companionship for people who yearn for it. I sit trying to watch my favorite shows only to see that a 30-minute show is really 15-20 minutes due to advertisements, which of most are redundantly annoying. Some commercials are just so heart wrenching, a little too much if I might add, that make watchers feel guilty and willing to give up things that they can’t afford to give up. Then we have breaking news alerts with horrific tragedies, or presidential announcements. While some of this information might be necessary for us to hear it just doesn’t fall into the mindset of finding happiness.

Am I being cynical? Certainly not.  I care about the world and everyone and everything in it.  My point just is that despite our attempts to find happiness, or what I would prefer to call acceptable happiness, our world is just filled with too many errs, problems, or tragedies. How does one find happiness amid any of that?

It’s fair to say that I’m happy when I hear that someone has achieved their success, that the sun will shine, when I’m watching an amazing sunset, when I smell the first snow fall, each time a newborn enters this world unknowing of its faults. There are plenty of things that make me happy. But I’d be truly happy if there was peace throughout the world with the absence of violence of any kind. It would be even better if there was no illness nor poverty and we can’t forget the end of all racism and ignorance, who could resist that bliss?

Happiness for now is what we make it.

My Way to Happiness©

Copyright 2017

By Felina Silver Robinson