Happiness Diaries

As 2022 comes to a screeching halt rather than an ideal gentle slide shut, I’ve been scrambling to reflect and come to clear conclusions about how this year went, what I learned, as well as what to do better before I am tossed into another year blindly waving my arms and hoping to go in the right direction as has been the case for most of my life. This is what I took away from the various books I've read that changed my perspective and gave me a new appreciation for life. 

My mom tells me that I have to know what I want in order to find it. 

A year ago, I knew that what I really wanted was to be happy. Far from new, and I didn’t expect anything to change a year later. People described me as melancholic even when I was young, and I accepted this as my fate, wearing it like a badge. 

I didn’t think happiness was a possibility. For others, maybe. For me, no, for a multitude of reasons. Actually, I thought it was possible, but that it was behind too many rice paper sliding doors, the hazy outline of it discernable if I squinted hard enough, but always impossibly elusive and distant from my current stance. Eventually, enough squinting tired my eyes and I resolved myself to shutting them from the sheer possibility.

When I want to learn about something, I read about it. So when I realized that I never felt that I was happy, truly happy, it was my instinct to read as much as I could on the topic. I was grasping desperately, compulsively, for any nugget of wisdom, any aphorism, to save me from the sinking ship of accepting eternal discontent that would never upright itself, and ultimately drag me down, slowly but surely.

Through my various explorations of happiness psychology and any non-fiction book with the word happiness located anywhere on the cover, I've learned that true happiness is impossible. Although initially depressing sounding, that single fact has liberated me. I had wondered, would it ever come? I now know, it won’t. No grand accomplishment, no soulmate, no material gain would bring it into my life, no matter how hard I tried, manifested, cried, patiently waited.

I came to terms with the fact that I will never reach that “happy” state I had expected to one day hit me like a brick, an event that would change my life forever, finally, I'd be able to say that I was happy. Oh, how I yearned for it. Always chasing and awaiting the ideal happy state, that fateful “true” moment of happiness, allowed it to distract me from the current moments of joy that I never deemed enough or lasting. All along, I was avoiding the actual state I should’ve been desiring, to be happier, a much simpler process that most people can attain. Life, and each year that passes, is only made up of moments. Each moment of joy, each moment of distraction from the crushing weight of existence, is a win, an additional unit of happiness, a droplet to add to the ocean, gently lapping at the shore where our feet lay, reminding us of better times. Joy is possible, it says, just look and find it. 

This year, I started embracing happy moments for me, not moments that society and others tell me would lead to eventual happiness, usually in the far future that require enduring countless hours of pain to supposedly ever graze it with my fingertips. I never realized how much I had given up throughout my life in the name of being more focused on what I was supposed to do to attain happiness, deeming simple pleasures as impractical, or not aligning with my true interests. I indulged myself this year. A day spent reading in bed. Picking up an English minor. Spending hours writing things for the sake of experiencing the pleasure of writing, without any intention of developing my professional career. Buying too many books with my dad. Making my sister laugh. Vulnerability here and there. But not too much of course, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Ultimately, just doing what I love.

I'd like to say I'm happier now. 

Dec. 14, 2022