Happiness is the ultimate and the most important goal for us to reach in this world. And Its meaning must be very important for us. When we look is up in a dictioanry, we see such an explanation: “state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy”. Well, this is a very correct definition but not enough, because happiness is a subjective word and its meaning may vary from person to person. So I asked what is happiness for people over there.
Here are some answers from the web:
I define happiness as … being at peace with oneself and the world. It happens when your mind (intent), body (action)and spirit(conscience) vibrate in unison. A rare occurrence when you leave it to chance but can happen all the time if you consciously seek it.
Happiness to me is seeing the smiles on my children’s faces and knowing that I am the one who put them there.
I define happiness as being able to do something for someone and not expect something in return.
I define happiness as the feeling of what the continual effort in bettering myself gives.
I define happiness as … sitting quietly on my front porch, watching a rainstorm dance by, observing all of nature joyously celebrating it’s abundance.
I define happiness as … a seed that God had planted in our heart, and we have to learn during the whole life to make it grow and flourish in a splendid flower, by learning to love each other
I define happiness as … standing in the rain and really feeling every single rain drop that touches you, and knowing that each drop is a not a tear from God above but a drop of his everlasting love falling sown on us.
I define happiness as … that reassuring sound of the other guy’s fax machine kicking in. “It’s going through…it’s really going through!”
I define happiness as … The smile on my son’s face when he wakes up and the sun is shining after 4 days of rain, and he says ‘mom, I can do my running today!’
I define happiness as being able to sit in the hammock on a spring evening and know I am valuable–even after having two story submissions rejected by editors, one book proposal rejected and hearing my cousin just got a book deal with a major publisher. The crickets and bullfrogs harmonize in the nearby pond and instead of thinking how far I have to go, I relish the successes I have on the smaller scale and know I can continue to pursue the mountains.
I define happiness as … comfortable shoes.
I define happiness as … not having your name show up in the obit. column.
I define happiness as … the smile you see when you give away the ‘biggest’ shark’s tooth you just found!
I define happiness as … knowing who you are and being at peace with yourself
As we see, happiness means very different things for each people. Bu there s something in common in all of these meanings. The main resource for happiness is ourselves. It is in our hands. We choose to be happy or not to be happy. So the problem is to define what is happiness for us. Then being happy becomes easier.
So what is happines for you?