on Happiness

Nobody is truly a stranger to the concept of happiness, why, then, are so many of us so unhappy? What is the true essence of happiness? In this essay, we discuss the romanticization of sadness, the insecurity of happiness, and the uphill journey to acceptance.Social Media, Pop Culture, and the Slippery Slope Down Sadness LaneSocial media, whether you accept it or not, has a heavy influence over how you feel about things, political figures, celebrities, places you never thought you’d visit, and even just how you feel. It has romanticized the idea of being unhappy to an extent where even if you are happy, you don’t want to be. It is as if your life is without meaning if you aren’t suffering in some way.In the show ‘BoJack Horseman’ (2014), when asked about why she’s so hellbent on putting all her worst memories on a page, Diane says, “Because if I don’t, all the damage I got wasn’t good damage. It was just damage.” The idea that there is something such as ‘good damage’, and the over-saturated way that it is shown to us on social media leads most - if not all - of us to search for meaning in sadness, and by extension, to search for sadness. Damage, or sadness, with meaning, is somehow, acceptable. It makes you feel special or different from those who haven’t endured those specific hardships. But plain damage? That’s what really hurts.I remember being eleven and writing diary entries every night, and every night, I would try my hardest to make it sound miserable. Even if I had a bad day, I had to make my unhappiness ‘sound right’. I had to make my unhappiness poetic and whimsical as if my diary entries were what the narrator says in the movies. I was desperate to be the sad main character who is beautiful and whimsical, who falls in love with a conventionally attractive man whose only reason for even taking an interest in me is my sadness.This romanticization of sadness, especially in teenage girls, for I have not one friend who hasn’t done similar things between the ages of eleven and fourteen, drives young people to seek out sadness in the hope of someone finding beauty in it. I needed my thoughts and expressions to be tragically beautiful, as if straight out of a black-and-white Tumblr GIF. And this, this inability to accept our emotions and our expressions as they are - good or bad, the inclination to be unhappy and put it on display, the strange insecurity we have in our happiness - this is what stops us from being truly, fantastically happy.Acceptance, Indie Music, and the Climb to HappinessI used to think that my happiness lay with my friends, my grades, and perhaps my teachers’ approval. But recently, I’ve found that it is so much more. What used to be an unstoppable urge to constantly be miserable, and then, to put said misery into words, has turned into a strange form of acceptance. I am no longer bound by a bubble of sadness. It is ever since I realized that perhaps, my happiness isn’t completely dependent on these external factors that I’ve surrounded myself with, that I’ve realized what the true essence of happiness is.Happiness, I’ve found, lies not in having everything you’ve ever wished for, but rather, in being happy with everything you do have. The inability to accept the happiness that most of my friends and I have felt for so long, has slowly, but surely, turned into us giggling all day long, with not a care about who’s yelling at us to stop, or if we’re being the whimsical main character of our lives.Long gone and discarded are the days of us feeling like we had to be sad to be interesting, for that is simply not the truth. I’ve found, at least for myself, that being interesting has nothing to do with if I’m unhappy or not - and everything to do with if I think I’m interesting or not. After much introspection, I found that I didn’t really like myself as the ‘sad main character’, and if I were given the chance to, I wouldn’t associate myself with the kind of person I was becoming. I think that’s what most of us turn a blind eye to; acceptance lies not in making yourself interesting to other people, and instead in looking at yourself with the same sincerity and openness that you have when you’re looking at other people.Somewhere between then and now, writing in my diary about the horrible day I just had turned into reading, nature turned into my dearest friend, faux-deep quotes on Tumblr turned into The 1975’s songs, staying up till ungodly hours turned into bed at ten, ‘Reputation’ turned into ‘folklore’, sad music turned into poetry and somewhere in between, I began to appreciate the fruit of my existence.Amidst the ebb and flow of life, there exists a state of being that is absolutely serene: the state of inner happiness. This elusive feeling is often sought after by those who strive for contentment and fulfillment, but its true nature lies not in the pursuit, but in the acceptance of oneself. For when we embrace the beauty of our imperfections when we acknowledge and cherish the unique qualities that make us who we are, we unlock a profound sense of joy that radiates from within. It is a happiness that is not dependent on external validation or fleeting pleasures, but on the deep and abiding connection, we have with our selves.The true essence of happiness lies in embracing the beauty of our unique selves and reveling in the exquisite joy that comes with inner happiness and self-acceptance. For it is in this state of being that we truly come alive, and experience the fullness of what it means to be human.