As a youngster, I had always believed – mistakenly, mind you – that happiness was some end state. That if I worked hard, if I made wise choices, and if I “did things the right way” I would be somehow rewarded. I believe this path was how one gets to the end state of happiness.

Yea, I was wrong on that one.

Life has taught me that happiness, for me, isn’t a title. It’s a state of mind that one needs to determine for themselves. It may be something small, such as enjoying a passing smile with a random stranger, or it may be accomplishing something you never thought possible.

I’m not going to sit here and say that money does not lead to happiness. It does. Anyone who has ever said that has never truly had money. Money leads to opportunity, opportunity leads to fulfilling hopes and dreams, and hopes and dreams can lead to happiness. In my view, the correct statement is that money is not happiness but can help you along the way.

Another aspect of happiness that I have debated with my mother is the source of happiness. Is it external to you, internal to you or a combination thereof? I would like to say a combination. No matter how positive of a person I was, I can guarantee you that I would NOT be happy to go to work every day if my job was to shovel shit. Just wouldn’t happen. However, one needs to be able to generate some form of positive emotion separate from the situation they are in or the conditions they are facing.

So, what is happiness?

More and more I’ve come to believe that happiness is like a string of pearls. It is temporary moments of enjoyment strung together by a thread of inconvenience and difficulty. Is it ideal? No. Recognizing that your next moment of enjoyment may simply be down the road sure helps dealing with the negative once faces in the course of daily activities.

All said and done, no one can tell you what happiness is. You need to determine that on your own. It’s not as easy as one would think, and it’s a continual process, but having an understanding of what happiness means to you will help how you interact with world around you.

Update:

So, as I was writing this I was in a rather poor mood. I had a random encounter with an individual that helped lift my mood. It’s the little things.