“Am I truly happy?”. That is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately. I mediate, looking for happiness and hoping that I can find the answer somewhere inside of me. Sometimes I feel like meditation creates more air and space in my body. Is this the feeling of happiness, I ask myself? Is there even a definition of happiness? A little while ago, I had a conversation with a good friend. It was his birthday and someone asked him what kind of goals he set for the coming year. I was truly amazed by his answer. He said: “I am actually really content with my life and I’m happy. If I were to die right now, I can honestly say I’ve had a wonderful life.”. I looked at him and got so inspired by his words. I admire him greatly for being able to say this on his 26th birthday. Meanwhile, I keep wondering if I will be able to say the same thing about my life.

What is happiness?

I wonder what happiness is and whether it depends on the expectations and demands that people place on it. When I think of happiness in its truest form, I think about children. A child is happy when they’re allowed to play at the playground or when they get an ice cream after dinner. Most children don’t have all these worries adults have, which allows them to happily live and enjoy being ‘little’. I believe that the older you get, the harder it gets to be happy. The way I see it, is that people are constantly looking for that moment of ultimate happiness. Once they’ve found that happiness and have experienced how it feels, they want to feel it again. The same feeling of happiness doesn’t feel as the ultimate happiness anymore, and as a result, people are looking for a new ultimate moment of happiness. The bar is constantly being set, as it were. Another belief I have is, other people can’t make you happy. They can affect your happiness, but you are the only one who can make yourself happy.

So: am I truly happy?

That being said I’m still trying to come up with an answer to the question: am I truly happy? Now that I have almost reached the end of this blog, while listening to acoustic music and the cute lights hanging around my bed, I feel relaxed and satisfied. Is this happiness, the feeling of satisfaction and being able to express yourself? Are these small moments that contribute to my happiness? What I also notice is that meditating daily also contributes to my happiness. It helps me to be less hard on myself and to reinforce feelings of self-esteem and self-compassion. I believe that if I can look at myself in a gentle way and embrace all the “imperfections” that come with it, I will soon be able to answer the question “am I truly happy?”, with a resounding YES!

Love,

Ghyta

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