Part 2

 So continuing with the part 2 of the pursuit to find the I in happiness. I am thinking about the analogy of a chewing gum stuck to your shoe and you have to yank it out or it possibly will remain stuck there for a long time. So if happiness is the gum and it's stuck to you but you can't take it for too long and end up yanking it out of your life. You start either taking happiness in life for granted or get suspicious and become negative. It's hard to accept if you are feeling good, something must be wrong, how can everything be fine and you feel happy. Second guessing yourself or over thinking to the brink of desperation. We are more comfortable with remaining sad and having discussions about it than being happy.

We are failing to notice the little things in life. It's like someone said, "take time to smell the roses." How can you find happiness without taking time out for yourself? Taking the time out now, not when you are 65. I agree life and lifestyles have become very taxing and that's more of a reason to find happiness in yourself. Sooner or later the stress will take a toll on life.

Take some time and think what makes you happy in your life right now. Maybe at this very moment. You have planned to be when you won that lottery ticket, so you hold off happiness till you win. If you are incapable of finding happiness at this moment in your life, no matter what the situation or stage it is in, then it doesn't seem likely to happen later either. What do you think? Should we process a large extent of our lives running after what will make us happy? Won't we just keep running? A long long way.

Happiness is freedom. Choose your way.

What does happiness mean to me, what does it mean to you? Do you ever wonder, or life is too busy or far too interesting to not ponder with these thoughts? I just want to make something clear before I go on. I am not here to preach, nor have I read any books on this topic. Any ways, here it goes.

For a newborn it could be something as simple as being soothed by a mother's touch. A teenager going on a date with their crush. An 8-yr old boy showing off his new nerf gun to his friends. Getting hired at your dream company. A mother watching over their newborn sleep in peace. Winning the tickets to the Super Bowl. Backpacking to Europe. The list goes on.

Since the day I felt the pressure of studying hard trying to achieve better grades to the day I had to find a job which will make my ends meet, it has been just a go go go. Your lifestyle changes and you constantly try to look for promotion or ways to make more money simply because you are not satisfied. Then you try to make time to actually have a life with people that care about you or rather you care about. You want to have a family next. You want to follow the typical routine in your life, why, because your friends are doing it. You keep setting goals at every age, by 24 have a job, by 28 buy a house and possibly fall in love and get married, by 31 have a baby, by 55 retire, then this and that. Maybe life doesn't happen in that order for most but lot of us are trying to follow something similar to this. We basically live according to this routine. Where we need to achieve certain things in life by a certain age and if not, then basically we feel that we are behind in life than the rest of the world. We are too busy trying to secure this perfect life and forget about happiness. There no time for that. Happiness is like taking a spoonful of Buckley's and this is when it is your last resort to getting better. This is the only time you remember oh yeah I am happy today, okay now back to my routine, my life. I feel somewhere along the lines we have separated happiness from life, like having a coffee without adding cream or sugar. It's a personal preference. 

I don't recall the last time I sat in silence for five minutes, doing absolutely nothing, thinking about nothing, just being silent and actually relaxing. Maybe in the wash room, but even then I need to check my phone. I, like many am addicted to technology, and I cannot process my day without it. Sooner or later the wrinkles are going to be here, the gift of the wonderful condition called stress. I work day in and day out, doing the same thing at work, then coming home and following the same routine. It's pretty much like a clockwork where you feel the whip of time and you need to run a marathon to get things done for day 1 so that you can be successful in day 2 and then day 3 and so on. 

Then I wonder to myself that I have the job I wanted, I have the family I wanted but there is something missing still. This is my five minute rendezvous in the wash room when I actually forgot to take the phone with me. I am brushing and I think am I happy, are people happy, are my friends happy. Are the Facebook statuses people put on actually mean happiness or just for bragging rights. I am confused at this point. I should be happy, but am I? 

I have to talk about a certain group of people before rambling more about happiness. I don't know what sun sign they are but I see the exact pattern in their personalities whenever I meet these individuals. They are the people who will tell you that everything is wonderful in their lives, they have the best husband or wife, they have the best house, they have the best job, the best kid, la di da di da. I personally find their talks very annoying, should I not be? I wonder. I have lived a good chunk of my life to know that everything is never perfect, there are always ups and downs. I have seen my parents, I have seen my friends, I have seen t.v shows, I have read books, no one has a perfect life so far. Maybe the Disney movies? There is meant to be sadness and joy in life. Everyone has had failures at something and at some point in their lives. But I don't know why these certain people paint this picture of having the best life possible and makes you wonder am I really a pessimist? Maybe they do have a fairy tale life. Yeah right! When you are lying to the world do you end up lying to yourself? How do you live like that?

I figured to find happiness, and these are my thoughts alone, you have to first remind yourself that it is not separate from you. You not only deserve to be happy but need to be happy in your life. This is not to say that I am depressed but most certainly forgotten that I am not just living to fulfil certain steps through my daily life. I am sure there are people out there who must have felt this way at some point in their lives. Specially when we are rotating around money, and have assigned money as a sign of happiness. Can all the luxury in the world buy happiness? If someone has achieved that, please let me know how it is working out for them. Maybe then I will actually try to work harder and buy luxury. I wonder if Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have found happiness, not the showbiz kind, but real happiness. Now I question what is real happiness? It is making me sad for not being able to define what real happiness is, or if in reality it actually exists, or just what the pop culture has spoon fed us? Do the Buddhists call it nirvana? I am still not sure.

This is getting more and more complicated to try and understand. I feel like the first step to happiness is to lower some expectations of yourself and the people you associate with. For example, if you feel like you put a hundred percent in your work according to your abilities and your boss still says you need to work even harder. Your husband tries to surprise you by cooking your favorite meal and you know there will be a massive clean up waiting for you in the kitchen. Setting up a time to meet your single friend and you show up an hour late because your baby decided to throw a tantrum at the last moment. You are fifteen minutes late to your work interview because this guy took the last parking spot and now you have to park a couple blocks away and walk in your pencil heels fast. You go out with a new friend and they don't end up tipping the waiter their portion and now you feel guilty and double tip. It's your birthday and this person shows up with a gift for you and you realize they are just re-gifting it because they forgot to take off the tag from the previous person. These maybe small things to get annoyed at for some and big for others. Pretty much everything above has happened to me barring one or two. 

Should I say the blog turned out too long and I should just continue in the next blog? I think I will. More to follow.