Why I choose to be happy and why you should

There are times that I feel half-empty deep inside. There are times when I’d ask myself, what am I doing with my life. I think it is a universal thing for us to question our existence, to have doubts about ourselves, and to be filled with whys and why not.

You don’t have to be succumbed by failures to break down and say I can’t do it any longer. Even when you are at the top, you sometimes wonder if it was worth all the struggles and how are you supposed to continue. The truth is that we are born to doubt because that is the very reason why we have evolved as a species. To question our very existence is enough to tell us that we exist. And perhaps the most profound struggle of our existence is the search for happiness.

Happiness is one of the very things that all of us crave for. Sane or not, we all have the desire to feel satisfaction, to feel contentment, to be filled with joy and happiness. We all want to be happy or to think that we are happy. So why is it that some people are all but hatred, anger, and sadness? Why is it that somehow it is difficult for others to smile? Will the world become a better place if there is no suffering and it’s all just merrymaking and fun?

I’m sorry to say but I’m not here to answer those questions. The reasons I have crafted this short snippet of thoughts is because I want to tell you why I choose to be happy and why you should. Let me start with my story.

I grew in an impoverished family (And today, I’m still poor). My parents work hard just to meet the daily ends of life. We’ve been to times where we ate only once in a day. We’ve been to times where there was nothing but water to quench our thirst and relieve our hunger. We’ve been to times where we’d place buckets to catch the dripping rainwater coming from the holes in the dilapidated nipa roof of our small house. I could go all day to tell you about our poverty-stricken life but then that is again not the purpose of this piece.

It is with this impoverished background that I started to develop my old view on happiness. I’ve started to compare my life with others. I’ve set benchmarks to my happiness. I thought that in order for me to be happy I must have the luxuries of life. I thought I must be successful to be happy. I thought that I should be like this and like that to be happy. My definition of happiness has been attached to things to material stuff.

Ten years forward, I now think that for me to see happiness that way is one of the greatest blunders of my life. I realized that it was a mistake for me to equate happiness to being successful sans failures. That happiness is all about being rich with material things. That it is about merrymaking and fun.
I realized that happiness is about contentment. More importantly, it ain’t about having benchmarks but not having one. You don’t need to have a scale to be happy. What you need is the ability to appreciate what you have – to see the greatness in the things around you.

Whether we like or not, there is always someone who is in a better position than us. We could be at the apex of our career at some point but in a snap, it can go downward spiral. Uncertainty is the only thing certain in life. So to say that you can only be happy because of this or that is totally absurd. You can be happy if you choose to. You can be happy if you feel contentment. You can be happy if you remove resentment in your heart.

Don’t compare, don’t put benchmarks. Instead, learn to put value in the things around you. And more importantly, treasure the relationships you have. People may come and go in your life but the thought of having someone journeyed with you is worth a thousand smiles. And remember that the only thing stopping you from being happy is yourself.

Two things that truly define happiness: contentment and appreciation. If you learn to appreciate and if you settle the scores within yourself and stop comparing or putting benchmarks to your life, I see no reason for you not to be happy.

So here are the three reasons why I choose to be happy. (1) I choose to be happy because I can. (2) I choose to be happy because I have to. (3) I choose to be happy because if I’m not the world won’t stop and wait for me to draw a smile.

So why should you choose to be happy? Here are three reasons. (1) You should choose to be happy because you can. (2) You should choose to be happy because you have to. (3) You should choose to be happy because if you don’t the world won’t stop and wait for you to draw a smile.

Let us all fill our souls with contentment and appreciation and surely we will be happy. And again remember that happiness is not about having benchmarks but not having one.