Happiness, happiness everywhere

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True Happiness

What is true happiness for you? What are the things you need in place before you can really be happy in your life? Do you have them? At what cost? Do you believe such happiness will last? Please share with us.

Hello guys, last week I managed to write an article for every theme of the contest, so let's try to keep this streak going! This week, the vote for the topics was very clear: Happiness is a theme that a lot of people like to write about. So do I, so let's go!

When I saw the topic, I started thinking which particular thing or experience does make me happy. Surprise, I couldn't think about one specific thing. Instantly I thought about having breakfast at home in the weekend after going to a butcher and a bakery. An image of swimming or rather just laying in a swimming pool with friends flashed into my mind aswell. Yesterday, I experienced an holiday feeling aswell, between two tasks I had to do, I sat on a terrace with a cocktail, just enjoying the nice weather. I could continue with a lot of different examples where I truely experience happiness. But I guess the main thought is already clear: Happiness can be everywhere, even in the smallest things.

I'll try to explain how I experience it or what could be the triggers. Although I think I'm not sure about it either. One of the reasons for being so, I always experience it differently. A certain experience could give me a feeling of happiness but one week later it doesn't. So even if all the circumstances are the same, except the time, I experience the moment differently. So in my opinion, it really depends on the timing and a variety of other influences like state of my mind, health, stuff going on in my head, etc.

A good example I have is a ski holiday of mine a couple of years ago. With a couple of friends we went on a skiing trip. As I didn't have my own skis, I rented a pair. After one of the apres ski's, my pair was stolen. Suddenly my 'grade of happiness' sunk to rockbottom. I was sad the rest of the evening, ate something and went to bed. (Compared to the previous days I was very happy, enjoying the vacation as I like skiing VERY MUCH.) The fact that my skis were stolen was weighing so heavily on me, I couldn't enjoy anything else. To complete the story, two days later, I started to enjoy the holidays again as I accepted the event of the stolen skis and I could move on.

Another aspect is the personal aspect, above story shows it aswell. I definitely wasn't happy while my friends were still enjoying their holidays. Or another example is when I go for some drinks with friends, for me it could be a fantastic evening while someone else would already leave because he doesn't like it at all. Influenced by certain events, tiredness, his emotional or physical state, etc.

To respond above questions, I think for me it really depends on a lot of different factors. Usually it's a certain moment in time which could last a couple of minutes, for example drinking my chocolate milk when breakfasting, it could last several days, for example when on ski holidays I'm truely happy for the whole duration. (Except the one time in above mentioned example.)

To conclude: I can't really define happinness for myself but I'm sure it depends on the moment in time, is personal, could last a couple of minutes or days and depends on a variety of factors.