The Pursuit of Happiness

“Are we searching for happiness in the right things?” — a question we all have been asking for who knows how long. But maybe the reason we can never find an answer is because the question itself is majorly flawed. Is happiness something to search for? Are there right and wrong things to be searching in?

I think most people will tell you when asked that we don’t find happiness in things—in cars, in houses, or even in people. We all know the “right” answer to that question is that we find it in ourselves—in our self-discovery, in our ability to learn to love ourselves despite what the world tells us. But since realizing the “right” answer to the question, I can’t help but ask, is it the “right” question? And when did we decide to start searching? Who decided that happiness wasn’t just integrated into our beings just as the color of our skin was?

There have been a few brilliant scenes in movies, a few wonderful chords strung together every now and then, a sudden feeling that rushes over us as we stand in front of an undeniably beautiful landscape and the wind kisses our face when we get just the slightest remembrance. And it’s like it’s right in front of us but we can’t quite touch it. So we run, we start chasing after it in hopes to keep feeling it, to keep finding it. We start searching again. And that’s when we tell our great stories of our pursuit of the infamous, elusive happiness. But the more and more I run in the direction I think to find it, the more I think it must just be a remembrance. Because never have I ever found it waiting for me at the end of a long pursuit. No, it always sneaks up to bite me in the middle, and I say to it, “Not now happiness, I am busy searching!” only to later remember these moments and think “Ahhh, yes. So that was it.”

Let's stop searching and instead, start REMEMBERING.

Ruby on her Pursuit of Happiness