I have been told and taught from a young age that I must find happiness. Like as if happiness grows on trees or is hidden away on some distant mountain top. I have searched far and wide for this “happiness.”

I have always assumed that it is a time or a place or even a thing or item that will make me happy. And so I searched. Behind every tree, in all the self help books, in the quotes of positive thinking, in self destructive buying habits, at expensive vacation resorts, and even trying ridiculous hobbies, all in a desperate effort to find the state of happy.

It was not on any map. Then I wondered whether I could find the state of happiness through its opposite of sadness. So I attracted situations that made me sad with the hopes I could define happiness by understanding what happiness was not.

Again happiness eluded me. “Hap” means chance or fortune noted in the english language circa late 14century. It was coined around that time to represent ” being pleased and content”. Around 1520 the old english term “blide ” was changed to “blithe ” meaning happy. In the greek to Irish happy was used to mean ” lucky.” In the Welsh it was used to mean “wise.”

Happiness is not something one finds. Nor is it a time or place that is waiting to be discovered. We are not born happy. We simply are born. It is our job to create the happiness that we seek.

Happiness is a state of being that has no time or space or object. So on my experimental journey to find happiness, I discovered “states” of happiness instead. A simple smile to a child, a kind word to a stranger, an observation of nature, a moment of introspection, a tasty meal, a hug from a loved one, moments of tenderness, patience with oneself.

There are many states that reveal the state of happiness. So if there are so many examples of “being happy” then there is no one unifying definition for it. Then everything or anything can become happy. The concept of plurality applies. It is in fact a manifestation. It a state of experience that we are able to attain.

As the Welsh pioneered its term to signify wise or wisdom so too the state of happiness is a state of understanding of knowledge that is applied as wisdom. When I became wise enough to make this differentiation I was able to apply it to all states and so happiness did not become something outside of me, yet it became something within that I created.

When I am “happy” I can touch someone’s heart. When you are happy you can too.

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I love you