Where Happiness Lies

Where Happiness Lies

"Finding happiness is like finding yourself. You don't find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness. Self-actualization is a process of discovering who you are, who you want to be and paving the way to happiness by doing what brings YOU the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run." -David Leonhardt

People can spend their entire lives searching to fill what they feel is that void of happiness. They will get lost in their own sense of time to find what happiness truly means. What these people are missing sight of, is when one looks too hard for something, when they are in search of it, they will never find it. Happiness does not always come in a box wrapped decoratively with ribbons and bows. It can come in fear, anguish, and pain; it can come from surprise, exuberance, and jealousy. Happiness comes from the most obscure places that some would never notice because they are looking too hard. It takes time and patience to understand where the emotions stir up to create something more than the initial reaction. Life is not handed to anyone in a written format of how it will be played out, we have choices that lead to the discovery of ourselves and what pleasures us.

You're an ugly little boy and you've got big ears' he'd weep and suffer and it wouldn't even be true, the other thinfaced conscious concentrated patched bluejeans and scuffed shoes who watches me delicate, suffering child that grows hard and greedy with puberty (Kerouac 191).

Humans do not want to feel pain. They do not want to experience the heart ache, the fears, the deaths, and the desperation of existence. If it were up to many, they would numb themselves from pain. "Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable" (Camus 109). But over the years, and through many tribulations of my own, I have come to discover that the empiricism of all undesirable emotions have led me into a better understanding of happiness. If all we know is good, then how do we determine good is good, and great is even better? Excluding pain from life never allows the prosperity of indulging in more emotions. When we experience the raw moments in our lives, we are living life to its fullest. No one intended for any human to go through life without acknowledging abominable days as well. We, as a society, had put such an emphasis on being happy all of the time, that we forget there are other emotions. We associate a well lived life with how happy one was throughout those years, and commiserate over those who seem less fortunate.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house (Thoreau 270).

She is in love with a young man, Stephen, who is engaged to an insignificant young girl. This Marggie Tulliver, instead of heedlessly preferring her own happiness, chooses, in the name of human solidarity to sacrifice herself and give up the man she loves (Sartre 59)

Reasonable people want to be as happy as possible. This does not mean that all reasonable people want the same thing, nor that whatever they want is wanted by them unconditionallyÐ'... we may come to believe that our important specific wants are incompatible, harmful, or injurious to those we love or that the requirements of our family, country, or profession take precedence over the satisfaction of our wants. So, while it is reasonable to want to be happy, this does not mean that happiness is the only or the most important aim reasonable people can have (Kekes, Belliotti 87).

Happiness for oneself comes from the giving and pleasing of others. This is where it originated, making the receiver feel good about themselves ultimately transpired to bringing the giver a feeling of warmth and contentment within their own lives. In today's society, people often lose sight of the simple gift of giving; how it makes others