The Source of True Happiness
What do you see when you look at the picture above?
I see HAPPINESS, in its purest form, not the Instagram or Facebook kind of happiness, but the real deal.
Look at the smiles, pure bliss. Someone might look at them and say, “hey, go and clean them up, they’re looking dirty.”
Nope, these kids will go home and wash themselves or even sleep like this, they don’t give a damn, they don’t know what else is happening elsewhere, they’re their own priority right now, all they want is to eat, play and sleep. They care not what what you think of them.
Their view of the world is different, they’re their own source of happiness, if someone calls them dirty, they’d probably just keep laughing at themselves and start looking at each other to find out who is covered in more dirt, not with any evil intentions but just to have another laugh, no one can take that happiness away from them.
When they get home dirty and their parents scold and then get them cleaned, they’ll be right back at it the very next day, you did something like that, I did, we probably all did.
Why?
This is because that is what gives us joy, that was our purpose at that stage of our lives, eat, play, sleep. Even school was a form of play. Those were probably the happiest times of our lives.
My biggest takeaway from this photo is that there’s still hope, there’s still a way to finding true happiness in the midst of all the crazy things happening all around us today, we can find that by looking deep down, asking ourselves those tough questions and even more difficult, telling ourselves the honest truth.
What is my purpose?
Can I put a laser focus on it, can everything I do have a direct or indirect connection to my purpose?
How can I be more useful to others?
Do I agree that my true happiness comes from me and that I shouldn’t expect someone to do the job of making me happy?
Will I acknowledge that we’re all running different races and someone’s success or happiness doesn’t necessarily mean failure for me?
Can we stop comparing ourselves with others and just work on our own dreams?
You can’t give what you don’t have, if you’re not happy, you cannot project it. Many of us are sad today because we do not even know our purpose and because we do not know it, we don’t find lasting happiness in anything we do.
We are constantly becoming what others want us to be, neglecting who we were meant to be.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Instead of making life a game to be enjoyed, we are making it a game to be won.
We wake up and live each passing day, being on the defensive, not being proactive, just waiting to see what life brings instead of bringing what is in us to life. If you don’t find your purpose, you’ll continue living someone else’s life, depriving the world of the special you.
These beautiful kids, I do not know who they are or where they’re from, but they’ve given me so much hope, so much to look forward to. Anytime things are going wrong for me, I’ll look at them on my wallpaper and lock-screen and remember that true happiness is a choice, a choice to find my purpose and live it or not to, and the final decision lies with me.
Your journey to finding true happiness starts by finding your purpose and living it. At the end of the day, happiness is a by-product of being useful doing things we love.
