Being Happy

"Tell me honestly. Are you 100% happy with everything that is going on in your life?"

Someone asked me this recently and I thought to myself what I really wanted. What was the thing that made me happy and how was I going to achieve it? I first had to ask myself, if I was even happy with the life I was living? And this was my response.

It's easier to be sad - to take the easy way out. Being happy is hard.

I mean take it from someone who to this day struggles internally if I am genuinely happy with my life.

I would ask myselfI how am I not happy when I know people have it worse. I'm healthy, I have a loving family, a man that supports my decisions in life, I've traveled to places some have dreamed of going to, my grandparents are all here to this day. I should be happy, so why aren't I?

“Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life.” - Mandy Hale

I did some inner soul searching and realized it's not whats around me that will make happy. It's what comes from within. Sure, my family makes me happy, traveling makes me happy, buying new things make me happy - but that was me waiting for happiness. My happiness depended on what surrounded me to make me happy, when I should have been just looking in the mirror. Theres this article I read that said seeking happiness outside ourselves is like waiting for warmth in a cave. You can sit there in the cold, dark wet cave waiting for something to keep you warm or you can build yourself a fire. Meaning you can't sit around and wait for happiness to come knocking out your door. You have to find within yourself.

Please watch this 45 second video:

I wish I could have said it better than the video but I can't. I do want to say though It's okay if you aren't happy right now. I wish someone told me that it was okay to be sad instead of telling me people had it worse. Happiness doesn't come because you tell it to come. It just clicks. It might not be right now. But one day you will realize what's important and what isn't. You will learn to care less about what other people think of you and more about what you think of yourself. You'll realize just how far you've come and you'll remember when you thought things were a mess and that you would never recover. You will smile. You will be happy. Because you are truly proud of yourself and the person you've fought so hard to become.