Own Your Happiness

It’s not as outrageous as it sounds.

Life’s purpose is to find and appreciate fleeting moments of happiness. | Photo by the author @gingakuji

A friend living overseas recently sent me a kind email. I was hinting at some of my recent difficult times, and I guess the suffering was apparent. My friend offered some gentle words of advice, including the following sentence:

“And I really hope you own happiness every day”.

My gut reaction was, “You can’t own happiness.” But I was being too critical. So, I let myself entertain the idea during the next few days, giving my friend, a non-native English speaker, the benefit of the doubt.

I ruminated on what it meant to “own happiness”. What initially seemed like a curious speck of dust in the air began to build a cloud around it until it eventually condensed into a concept that rained on me.

Before that letter, I would have thought or told people that happiness, as an entity, does not exist. It is a transitory state of mind triggered by a favorable set of circumstances and caused by a rush of dopamine in the brain.

Happiness, I believe, is an illusory destination. Now you see it, and now you don’t. Or rather, now you’re there, and now you’re not.

That feeling fades or abruptly disappears. So, happiness cannot be something to own, right?

We can. Here’s how.

I could feel joy in possibly every moment of my life if I could find peace within myself (because presently I don’t, at least not like a Buddha).

I could be at peace if I could accept, forgive, and love myself.

I could love myself if I could let go.

I could let go if I could learn to live in the now.

I could live in the now if I could take each breath mindfully.

So, through these connections, I would have to say that if my breath exists, then happiness must exist, too.

Owing happiness doesn’t mean that I need to control it or make myself happy at a whim. It means I am responsible for my happiness. Only I have the power to do that.

Nobody or nothing can make me happy.

It comes down to choice.

And when we own something, we have the right to choose.

It may not happen automatically and instantly. I’m no Happy Meal™️.

It’s a work in progress. It has always been. It shall always be.

And G*d said, “Love your enemy.”

I obeyed him and loved myself. — Anonymous

Thank you all for reading.