On happiness
I’ve had a weird relationship with happiness.
I’ve both craved and shunned it.
Chased after it and chased it away.
Celebrated every high and wallowed in every low.
Attached to both as though they define me.
Like most, I’ve come to understand that highs and lows have nothing to do with happiness.
Highs and lows are simply that.
Like the tide or the weather,
things that come and things that go.
Moods, feelings, phases, fortune,
Good times and bad.
It’s my choice to welcome happiness.
Or create it within my heart and mind.
It isn’t always easy.
On days when a bill is due.
Or the relationship isn’t working.
Or the black dog walks in.
It isn’t easy to choose happiness.
And it’s okay not to.
Bypassing is when we spin the hard times into lies and tell ourselves, “everything happens for a reason.”
We smile and say, “It’s a blessing in disguise,” before having a chance to savour the wound.
We fear being seen as anyone other than an okay person.
That if we’re not okay, there must be something wrong with us.
But happiness doesn’t require denial.
It embraces grief and loss and despair.
It sits in the background, aflame and ever-burning.
Firing up once the body and mind have digested their wounds.
Once we’ve finished our healing.
And happiness is not a series of quotes on Instagram.
Nor is it a life lived on the beach.
It can happen in the office.
And it’s there alongside the mundane routine of adulthood too.
I love seeing people happy.
It reminds me that nothing is perfect.
Nothing lasts forever.
Brief moments of happiness are beautifully fleeting.
And I’m reminded to cherish them without attachment.
To celebrate the fact that they’re there,
even when I can’t feel them.
Even when I’m not experiencing them.
Happiness doesn’t have to be a lifestyle.
It isn’t a full-time job.
It’s a subtle sweetness that never feels like how it looks
in the movies or online.
And I’m learning to savour it.
This post was originally published in 2018 in Byron Magazine under the title, “How To Savour Small Moments of Happiness.”