anonymous asked:
You know when everything in your life seems right but you just don’t feel it? Like you’re taking a degree, you have friends, a good family, a boyfriend who loves you to death, and still there’s something missing. I don’t get it. I have everything to be happy, more than many people. Then why? It makes me feel kinda selfish to keep on complaining. I truly want to be happy but there’s always something missing and I don’t know what it is. Is this normal? Tell me everything’s gonna be alright please.
Everything’s gonna be alright.
And I’m gonna tell you a secret.
Happiness is not a thing you achieve when you get everything you want.
Happiness is a verb.
Okay it’s not a verb. It’s a noun, but that’s where we get it wrong. It’s not a thing. It’s not a goal. It’s an action. It’s a pursuit. It’s a habit.
As long as we think we’re going to find happiness by winning at life and getting it right and HAVING all the good things, then we’re never going to find happiness.
Happiness is choosing to look at your life and saying. Yes. This is good. I like this. (Not looking at it and saying, wait why didn’t this fulfill me?)
Happiness is paying attention to the beauty around you, and not nitpicking it until it is no longer good enough.
Happiness is enjoying the little things, along with the big things.
Happiness is appreciating what you do have, and giving up that hunt for something better, over the next hill, the thing that WILL make you happy.
Because things don’t make you happy. They might make you feel good for the short term, but it doesn’t last and it’s not happiness until you practice the joy within yourself.
Want an exercise to help you become happier? To train your brain to look for the positive and the good in what you have instead of always the flaws and negativity?
This is an exercise that has worked the best for me, even whenI thought it was corny and bullshit and faking. The HABIT reorders your brain to be more positive and optimistic and therefore find the happiness in the present.
Ok.
Here.
Get a journal. Any kind you like. Fancy. Plain. A steno pad. A blog. IDC, just something you’re comfortable writing in and will keep up, because it’s the habit that’s important.
At least once a day, write down three things that you are grateful for. Or three things that make you happy. Or three things you find beautiful. Three good things. You can phrase it anyway you want, but it’s about appreciating life as it is. Whether that means it’s small or large happiness, it doesn’t matter.
It can be something big like a great career or a fulfilling relationship or something small like condensation on the car window. I think I have written about the first sip of coffee in the morning more times than I can count. Try not to write about the same thing every day, because this exercise is supposed to stretch your perspective so that you begin to see the things around you that are good and worthy and make you happy. And it can definitely be a struggle sometimes, but if you struggle and have a list of things that cause happiness and this causes you to be able to see more things that cause happiness, and you begin to be surrounded by a life that is full of happiness… then suddenly, or perhaps slowly, you are making a happy life for yourself.
And this can happen no matter if you’re winning at life or everything is messed up.
It doesn’t mean you don’t change and grow and search for better things in life, it means you accept where you are right now as worthy and good and miraculous because it’s yours and you’re still here, and you get to experience it.
The hardest part for me is keeping it up. But it’s the habit that changes your perspective, so it’s worth it.
you can ask me questions anonymously on my tumblr
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