We often talk about happiness and the desire to be happy. In particular in personal development. But what does that really mean?
It seems that the mainstream understanding of happiness is basically the opposite equivalent of sadness or pain. And often promoted as the ‘to be achieved standard’ in life.
This is not only unrealistic, but also doesn’t do justice to the difficult moments we all experience. Being sad, to my experience, doesn’t exclude being happy.
The distinction to be made here is one between joy and happiness.
Joy is a simple emotion. Synonymous to a state of bliss, and identified in those running around with a big smile on their face and a vibe of excitement around them. It’s temporary, and can’t be experienced 100% of the time.
Happiness however is much more complex and goes much deeper than joy. It is rather determined by a sense of contentment about something we have in our life. Which has an underlying frequency of gratitude.
Last year, I has some really difficult situations related, among others, to the death of my father. So I was sad, and also angry at times. Would I have considered myself as unhappy? No, I wouldn’t. Because my life was still filled with plenty of things I was grateful for… like work that I love and people I deeply appreciate.
Maybe a happy life is one touched by both joy and sadness, and kind of ‘wrapped’ in gratitude…
“My intention is to hold a far greater context for our entire emotional experience, so that we can even allow appreciation for the rain and the storms that are an inevitable part of this masterpiece of a life.” – Melanie Ann Layer