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| Photo by Author |
Happiness is subjective.
Everyone has a different view of happiness, what counts as one and what doesn’t. My view on happiness used to be destructive. I used to believe that happiness can only be realized at the top where greater things in life await. I was that kid who chased academic validation by joining competitions, studying day and night, and striving to achieve the highest grades I could so by the end of the year, my neck would be heavy with medals, sashes, and pins—and that my parents get to have the bragging rights of having one of the brightest kids at school.
I used to think that being part of a large circle of friends with the "cool" kids would grant me the happiness I’d been yearning for, so I befriended a lot of people and developed a habit of pleasing them so they would let me in and join the "fun." I treated them with generosity and tolerated their bullying and the hurtful remarks they threw at me because I thought I needed them to be happy.
I deliberately allowed and ignored some of my family members to walk over me, treat me with disrespect, make fun of me, and mock my achievements and interests in life because I was deluged in the belief that I need my family to be whole in the pursuit of happiness that I’ve been naively chasing after. For years, I tried my very best to hold everything together and treat my family with respect as if they’ve been treating me with the same magnitude of it.
However, doing all of those sucked the joyful soul out of me instead.
Those medals I worked hard for were nothing but a bunch of metals and bronze manufactured by society to fuel my thirst for validation so I will repeat the same cycle over and over again. Those ‘friends’ who I tried so hard to please and keep were the ones who ruined me in the end and discarded me as if I’m just a piece of trash they needed to get rid of. Those family members whom I loved and respected were the ones who ruined my perception of family and forever traumatized me with the way they treated me.
All because I was stupid to believe that I needed all of them to find happiness.
When in reality, a flawless academic record, "cool" friends, and a complete family should not be the center of my happiness. If anything, these factors are what stripped me off of the hunger and joy I once harbor towards life. Reaching the top and striving for the ideal notion of happiness achieved through perfection flushed my appetite for life and rendered my world a mere canvas of gray that is so hauntingly empty and littered with superficial things.
That, made me realize that happiness is not always found in the greater things in life.
Looking back, I noticed that happiness for me is waking up at 6AM with the chickens as my alarm clock along with the familiar and constant scent of the morning dew kissing the beauty of nature. Happiness is walking alone in the park with my favorite playlist playing on my earphones as I watch the ethereal splotches of pink, orange, blue, purple, and yellow in the sky while the sun is setting. Happiness is me finding comfort and home in that one friend who found me at my worst and stayed in my life since. Happiness is me pulling the SSR card of my oshis in my favorite gacha games. Happiness is seeing my favorite side character in an anime having more than 10 seconds of screen time in the entire season. Happiness is finding a 100k-word completed fanfiction with my favorite ship, tropes, and dynamics. Happiness is managing to pass my requirements at the last minute before the deadline. Happiness is pouring all of my thoughts into a blank page where words are merely an instrument to materialize the concoction of emotions brewing inside me that no one would understand.
Happiness is me realizing that these little things are what truly make me happy.
I don’t need to achieve greatness. I don’t need to live an ideal life of grandeur to say that I am truly happy.
And so do you.
I know that in a world where greatness has always been looked upon and admired, it is hard to believe that we don’t need it in order to find delight in our life. Especially in a society where greatness and perfection are called "ideal" because it is the desired standard for happiness. However, this standard should not exist in the first place for happiness can also be found in imperfection and humbleness.
Don’t let society fool you into believing that happiness can only be found at the top because it is not. Happiness is also inscribed in the little things in your everyday life that make situations bearable and inspire you to keep going no matter how silly, weird, and small they are. You just have to be mindful of them and be grateful for them to realize it.
At the end of the day, happiness is built upon the small things in life.
