Challenge Day #9: Write About Happiness

So… We are going to talk about happiness (again). No, I’m not hate it. In fact, it’s fun. But… I hope I’m not gonna find this topic again in the next challenges because I might running out of idea what to write about the same topic. And I might already put a spoiler on day 2 challenge, which I wrote about things that makes me happy. In the end of that post, I put a quotes from Julian Baker (One Tree Hill’s character) about happiness.

So… Happiness… According to this quote, hapiness is a state. If I’m not mistaken, when a word has -ness in it, it means it’s a noun. So Happy-ness is a noun word for happy (adj.). Why should I mention about this because how I see it help me explain about what I want to write (and how I think about it) here.

Happiness is a noun. Literary, it’s correct. But to me, happiness is a state. A condition. A condition which people meet something that make them happy. For example, my source of happiness is cat. Whenever I met cat, I might feel happy. That time when I can play or by just looking at cat is my happiness.

Do I want to feel happy most of the time? Yes, most of the time. Why most of the time? Because evolutionary theory mentioned that in order to survive, human must feeling varieties of emotion. That include sad, disguist, fear, etc. (Just watch the Pixar’s animatin movie titled Inside Out). How do I get my happiness? Search for my source of happiness. What If I can’t find them? I probably feel less happy. Less happy, it doesn’t always have to be sad. Just less happy.

Then… How do I know I feel happy or already find my happiness? Understand your body response on anything. There some typical responses happened on your body when you feel certain type of emotion. For example, smile or laugh is identical with happy, and tears is identical with sad. Even though in practice, tears can mean joy and smile can mean anger. But when you understand your own body responses, you might be able to distinguish these complications.

Also, scientifically, the memory can help you know whether you feel happy or other emotion. If you feel happy, then you are able to easily access (meaning remember and recall) happy memories. This is what they call as mood congruence learning. If someone can easily recall sad times, this may reflect that their emotion state is sad.

Is it bad to feel sad? I might say no, it isn’t. You need to feel sad sometimes (but not too often). Why? Because we need it to feel the contrast effect. Just like… How can you say something beautiful if you never see something awful. A short person wouldn’t call short if there’s no tall people. So does happiness. You won’t feel happy if you never feel sad. Sadness helps people understand what it meant to be happy and how to be happy (by avoiding things that can make you sad or, logically speaking, approaching somethings that can make you feel happy).

So, my point is… Try to understand yourself. Listen to your feeling. Acknowledge when you feel happy, what things that make you feel that way. When we can figure how to be happy, we will find our hapiness come more often than sadness. That way, we can start to enjoy this life.