Some Reminders For Anyone Who’s Struggling To Find Their Happiness 🌸
'You can't intellectualize your way to joy or inner peace.'
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Everyone’s looking for the secret to happiness. We read articles and books that claim that if you do x, y, or z, your life will transform for the better. We look at the people on Instagram with seemingly perfect lives and wonder how we can emulate what they have. We listen to TED Talks and write out five-year plans and try every TikTok hack we find. But what do we do if none of that works?
The truth is, there’s no recipe for happiness that you can follow perfectly, no equation where you can just plug in all the right elements and end up with the conclusion you want. We can try to intellectualize happiness all we want, but at the end of the day, that might leave us more disappointed when we realize there’s no way to logic your way to happiness.
Here’s the problem: Happiness is subjective, and it isn’t a set state of being. It’s not a destination, because there is no point in your life where you’ll always be happy. That just isn’t realistic, and choosing to look at life that way will make you always feel like you’re coming up short. But if you remember that happiness is an emotion you want to experience and that it is solely yours to experience, it can completely change the way you navigate your life—for the better.
This isn’t about toxic positivity or ignoring mental health issues. It’s not even about living a life that’s pain-free. Sometimes happiness begins with building a home out of rock bottom and being mindful of the ways you’re struggling—and seeking out help when you know you need it. Sometimes it’s finding the humor in the sadness or seeking out beauty when the world feels bleak. Sometimes it starts exactly where you are, even if you don’t love where you’re standing. But it always, always, always starts with you.
Because you won’t find happiness if you’re running after someone else’s life plan. You won’t find it by only succeeding or reaching all the goal posts someone else set up for you. Happiness is truly an individual path, fueled by your own desires, your own intuition, your own gut knowledge of what it is you need. It’s about taking the time to truly understand who you are at your own soul-level—what makes you laugh and what fills you with passion and what soothes your soul after a hard day. Sacha Kurucz put it best: “Forget people-pleasing and status—if you truly want to be happy and successful, be who you are. The rest will fall into place.”
Just know that what makes you happy one day may not make you happy the next day, and that’s okay. If happiness is an emotion, not a set state, it’s bound to change, just like you are. And instead of running after the things that used to make you happy and hoping it’ll fulfill you the way it once did, allow yourself to go off-path and find another way. Just trust that you’ll find your way again, because if happiness isn’t a set state, then neither is any other negative emotion. Find comfort in that knowledge.
So, when you sit down and really ask yourself where you find your happiness, think about these words by Matt Wilks: “Remember that seated in each present moment is an opportunity to choose not just what happiness looks like, but what it feels like too. Don’t take this gift for granted. Don’t look to shy away from this vital question. Because once you decide, in this moment now, what happiness may mean to you, then you suddenly guide your everyday actions in a direction intuitively guiding you where to go.”
What We’re Reading This Week 📖💛
“Yes, you were made for more. But maybe it’s not about more tasks. More work. More responsibility. More consumption. More money. Or more conventional success. Ever think that, instead, you were made for more laughter? More spontaneous fun. More sunshine on your face. More ice cream. More feeling at home in your body.” — Jamie Varon
“No matter how graciously someone forgives you, they cannot absolve you of your own guilt.” — James Greig
“Life is a series of moments, strung in a line. Feel where you are. There’s nothing to regret and nothing to dread. Some days you’ll feel satisfied and other days you’ll feel disillusioned. The more you feel, the more joy will seep into your life.” — Heather Havrilesky
“It’s so important to spend time with yourself and learn to love your own company, to really get to know your wants and needs, and connect with yourself on a deeper level behind closed doors. It’s a powerful thing, that you have the ability to know and love yourself more than anyone else can.” — Leah Perrino
“You’re still whole, it seems like you’ve just changed your parameters.” — Caitlin Conlon
For more reading recommendations follow Quote Catalog where we find and file the best things to read every single day.
Let us leave you with this:
“I like your happiness,” I said. “Where did you get it?”
“This old thing?” she answered. “I made it myself.”
You can make your own happiness, too 🤍
For more from us, check out ‘101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think’ by Brianna Wiest and ‘A Gentle Reminder’ by Bianca Sparacino, both back in stock exclusively on Shop Catalog.
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