what is happiness?

PHILOSOPHY, Coming-of-Age

Some people think happiness will "come" when they finally get that job, when they get a partner, when they lose those few pounds. But it's too easy to forget the fragility of being human: you don't have that time to delay, to put off a life you subconsciously want through petty excuses of the brain. Why can't you try today?

Welcome to our new column, "What is happiness," a continuous effort to explore what happiness is, from creative mediums of film, peers, psychology, art, and more.

So to start it off, we asked a few people,

What does happiness mean to you?

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"Happiness is lying in the sun and laughing with friends."

"Being wholeheartedly content and at piece with your current situation?"

"Happiness is when I'm doing things right now that I'm enjoying without feeling like I should be doing something else or be somewhere else."

"Well it means a lot to me. I think it is one of the most important parts of life. And I think it means having fun and genuinely enjoying your surrounding whether it's people or an activity."

"It means sitting on your childhood bed and home playing guitar with the soft afternoon sun beaming through the open window letting in warm breezes that nestle your hair."

Happiness is when the little voice in your head starts agreeing with your decisions.

Happiness is when I feel balanced and whole. When I'm in the right setting and around the right people doing something I love.

"Happiness is like when waves crash onto the beach but the tide comes up so slightly that it slightly brushes against your feet."

"Happiness means to have embraced and be at peace with all parts of yourself, the world, and life itself, to feel in place in the world. "

Imo, The greatest means for me to feel this spiritually, on a deeper, illogical, unspoken level, is through nature. If there's one place I could be alone for the rest of the world, it'd be a forest, any vast earthy scape. I feel put in my place, not in a condescending way, but a humble, soft manner that fills me with awe, wonder, and appreciation for my own inner worth. I recognize how small I am, that I am but a small piece in the grand scheme of the way things work; how narrow-minded it is to give all my life's power away by delving too deep in my head. I become at peace with humanity, with all the brokenness, with all my own imperfections, and embrace it; nature is so beautiful in each and every one of its different parts, its different species, its diversity, but never its quote unquote "perfection." It is only perfect from its authenticity, diversity, and imperfections that create its breathless beauty; and if such a thing were created this beautiful, I wonder if they know their beauty, their value. It must be the same for us. I draw this from one of my favorite quotes ever:

I was something that lay under the sun and felt like it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air. or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. -Willa Cather, My Antonia

You simply don't live long enough to hold these insecurities; so, to be happy means to make peace with that and to just enjoy life in the moment.

"When I feel happy I smile"