We All Just Want to Be Happy

I think that the whole reason human beings end up being unhappy is because of their quest to be happy. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be happy, it's definitely something that we're all entitled to, it's something that God wants for us. But in trying to find exactly what makes us happy, we waste most of it trying to chase after illusions that are the wrong thing, and then we end up being unhappy. That's just it, we need to learn what exactly in life is going to make us happy, and be sure of it. Only sometimes, we can never be sure of it, so it's harder than it seems to figure out what truly makes us happy.

Of course, there are things in life that put a smile on our faces. The perfect top to go with those jeans, a bag that we got on sale, or a necklace that goes so well with one of our bracelets. Those are the type of things that can make us "happy", but really for how long? Until we find another, supposedly better, thing to make us happy? I don't think that there's anything wrong with material happiness, I think it's something that we all need to feel. But it can be so easy to let it get out of hand and consume us, so that we're never happy ever again because we're too busy trying to get the things that would supposedly make us "happy."

I think the purpose of material happiness is to ultimately fuel genuine happiness. But what exactly is genuine happiness? I think that it's the happiness that you get from essentially nothing. It's hard to explain. It comes from something, that's the spark that sets it up, but it continually spreads from nothing at all. Or at least, from having nothing at all.
For me, I think that it goes like this. Material happiness starts it off, like when receiving a gift. But the genuine happiness transcends it in that you are so happy that there are people in life who care about you. Genuine happiness probably has levels too, like feeling even happier that there are people in your life who care enough about you to give you a gift. And then , you're no longer happy about the gift itself, but the fact that there is a gift, and that there is a person giving it, and that that person cares about you enough to do that.

I don't know, maybe it's just me that feels that way about what happiness really is, maybe I'm not. But no matter what happiness is to others, it doesn't matter so long as what does is what happiness is to you. Everyone has different capacities and gauges for happiness, and it wouldn't be fair to expect something to evoke the same reaction for everything. Maybe the trick to life is figuring out how much or how little we need to work to make others happy. Maybe after we figure that out can we finally realize what it is exactly that makes ourselves genuinely happy.