Generally, happiness is measured by asking people about how satisfied they feel with their lives or how much positive and negative emotion they tend to feel overall. 

I believe that these days, some people think happiness is something you chase for years and years until the conditions are undeniably perfect. Although, this is not sustainable and in my opinion, you will not be happy if you are just waiting for it to strike you. 

There is a reason why it is called “finding happiness.” It is a choice and it is something that people have control over. Majority of the time, this is forgotten and instead it is just assumed that somehow, someway happiness will just appear in life, like a lovely little surprise. 

I’ve made the mistake believing that happiness can only be one thing, hence prohibiting me from being happy. This limited viewpoint was actually making me unhappy. Therefore, I’ve had to learn that in reality, happiness can be anything you choose it to be. 

What I mean is that there is so much expectation that happiness is supposed to be this big, grand, momentous reckoning that happens to a person to make them suddenly okay. But it isn’t like that at all. It’s harder than that. Happiness needs to be attained everyday and through everything that you do, you can’t expect it to just come to you.

One day you may be happy because you got a good grade on your test. Another day you’re happy because you finished the book you’ve been reading. Or you could just be happy because you finally got to go outside without a jacket. 

To me happiness isn’t extreme or sudden or even remotely monumental, sometimes it’s just being a little less sad. 

You must realize that being truly happy is about you finding the strength and courage to do so. It’s about you being able to look at pain and sadness in the face and smile remembering all the times you’ve felt that way and decided to still choose happiness. It is a moment by moment emotion; it isn’t something that you magically begin to feel. 

Yes, life can be horrible but you must remember how many more summers you will get to experience and how many good books you will read, how many great meals you will eat and how many times you will sit at your kitchen table with your friends and talk about nothing at all. That is happiness, all of what I just mentioned. You just have to recognize it. 

For me, I’ve realized that sometimes you think you’re waiting for happiness to find you when in reality it has saved you in a thousand different ways since the sun rose–and all you had to do was look.