Happiness is All About....

I was talking with someone the other day and we were talking about "happiness." About being happy. And how a lot of us going through life saying and thinking ok! When THIS happens, THEN I'll be happy! When I graduate I will be happy! When I move! Ill be happy then! When I'm dating someone, or married THEN I'll me happy! When I have kids I'll be happy! When I get that car I've always wanted I will be happy! When I get that dream job, or house I'll be happy THEN!  On and on and on...we look out THERE somewhere at things we don't have, but desire and say "when", "then"...I will be happy... But what does it actually mean to be or have this allusive thing we call "happiness" that we are always looking away ahead to take hold of as our own?

I was curious and decided to visit my good friend Webster. His definition of "happy" is:

1. delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing: (situation or person)  I.e. to be happy to see a person.

2. characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy:
a happy mood; a happy frame of mind.

Happiness:

1. The quality or state of being happy

2. good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.

The words that stood out to me:  "delighted or pleased as over a particular thing.."  "Contentment"...mmm a "happy frame of mind"...

If those are true and THAT is the definition of being happy or happiness, then perhaps happiness isn't so much out THERE as it is in HERE, in US...in our choices of what to focus on, what we let ourselves dwell on...

Guaranteed if any of us tried and actually looked for it, even if we didn't love our job, or our house or our relationship, or our place in life, I'm quite positive if we looked we could still find SOMETHING to delight about. We could still adjust our frame of mind to see joy in various aspects of our lives..

If we woke up this morning and the only things, people, situations left in our lives were the things we had thanked God for, or had acknowledge and been grateful for, had noticed, what would be here? Would we still have sunny days? Hear a good song on the radio? Be able to use our bodies to move, talk, laugh, run, jump, play? Would we still have hot showers? Mountains, oceans? A roof over our heads? Would we still have family or friends, or a delicious meal? Would we still have spouse, our kids, our brothers sisters moms or dads?  Would we still have good books, beds to sleep in, cars to drive in, would we still have mental clarity, be able to connect with people, to dream? Would we still be able to play sports, or video games, to watch sports, or movies? Would we be able to go to church, the grocery, the gym? Would we still have electricity, gas, heat or air conditioning? Would we still have our fingers, our toes, our senses of seeing, smell, touch, hearing taste? Would we be able to hug and kiss our loved ones? To hike, to take a road trip? To sit in silence? To witness the laughter and joy of kids? To witness the deep love of that elderly coupe who has been married for 60 years? To sleep? Would we still be able to write, cook, shop, camp? Would we be able to have adventures? Would we have clothes? Or shoes? A good glass of wine or a great beer from Europe? Would we still be able to travel or sit out in the field underneath the stars? Ride fore wheelers? Would we still be able to go see a movie, have a great conversation, plant a garden, or chop fire wood?  This list is inexhaustible, it could go on for days...my thought simply being, at least one of those things, or if not one of those, surely SOMETHING we do or experience each day, or the way we adjust our mindset, gives us joy or contentment, or rather that choose to see those things...

So what if, instead of waiting for this, that and the other thing OUT THERE to be happy, we looked at the beauty around us, saw those little daily joys and gifts and delighted in them.  There's a heck of a lot of life to live and it's been my experience thus far that rarely does life go exactly how you would expect or plan it to and yet, it's still a magnificent gift and there are still a million joys and delights to be had if we choose to see and experience them.. 

"It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit."

"Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."