If you're happy and you know it....

" I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies. They are accidents and no one's fault... And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?"
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden



It's hard to find something that makes you Happy. It's hard to remember Happy once it's gone. And we all know that Happy, although always welcome, often comes uninvited and leaves unexpectedly.

She said: "I don't remember what it's like to be happy. Maybe I've never been happy."

It really bothered me. It bothered me more when she asked me the last time I was happy and I didn't have an answer already sitting on my tongue just waiting to be brought into the world of audibility. When was the last time I was happy? Have I ever been truly happy? What is happiness?
According to Shakespeare, and reiterated by Shania Twain, happiness is wanting what you have and not having what you want. So does that mean happiness is lacking the desire to change? To become better? To be void of dreams and aspirations? That in itself seems an impossible feat for man, whose cornerstone is the ability to create and build and improve. Thus, if we are basing happiness off of the testament of good ol' Willy, happiness, if it is possible, can never occur simultaneously with success. And true happiness can only be reached by the listless and the vapid extremities of our species.....
No. This is ridiculous. I just don't agree. Perhaps this is the romantic in me but I don't view happiness as that.
Happiness is laughter. Friendship. Fun. Whatever. Happiness is not complicated. It is a feeling of ease and contentedness and being entirely comfortable with who you are and what you have. It is not this unreachable thing that is taped to the ceiling, dangling on a string that is just out of our reach, mocking us as it swings left and right. No. That is the wrong outlook on happiness. Happiness is waiting to be picked up like....I don't know, an eager puppy. Sometimes it is just sitting there amidst it all, floating all around and surrounding the atmosphere with warmth and multiplying exponentially, readily available to all. Sometimes it is hidden like buried treasure and takes considerable strength and patience to procure. But it's there. It is waiting. You just have to take the time to find it. If you are not happy, you are not letting yourself be happy. And it is time you crawl out of yourself and see the world and breathe in the fresh air and all its glory of new beginnings and potential laughter. Happiness is not complicated. It is the simplest idea out there.
And in truth that's all happiness is nothing but a state of mind. It is a state in the present as we face our challenges and revel in our triumphs and accept our defeats. Happiness is confidence and assuredness and composure and love.

Okay. So I'm happy and apparently it's reachable. Then what am I working towards now? If I'm already happy, what else do I want? So maybe I'm not happy, or I would already be dead or basically dead, which brings back that earlier picture of someone who is "happy" and doesn't do anything because of it...........which again makes me think that productivity and happiness do not go hand in hand.
If happiness means being content with what you have, than happiness is not stunted by settling, in fact happiness would be synonymous to settling and being completely...happy with settling.

Ugh. This is torturous. What is happiness? Was my sister right? Have none of us ever been happy?
Is it ironic that the idea of happiness is plaguing me?