Why There Isn't A "Key" To Happiness...

  

Recently, my Facebook newsfeed had been flooded with links to different articles that have titles like, “7 Life Hacks For A Happy Relationship” or, “37 Traits of People Who Have Found The Keys To Happiness”. You know the ones I’m referring to. Now, I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t sometimes indulge in reading these little “life lessons”, because I have and I do. However, I’ve recently been wondering if maybe these lists full of “advice” are actually hurting us more than they’re helping us.

The main issue I see with this new trend in online articles, is that they are portraying happiness as something tangible that is gained, when I believe that happiness is something you personally create for yourself. Happiness is made to seem like something that is on the other side of this giant brick wall that you have to try and climb over to get to. When in reality, happiness is a mindset and appreciation for what you’ve been given.

Many of these articles make it seem like there are tricks and shortcuts you can take to become happy. They give you a list of “habits” to begin doing daily and promise that if you follow these steps exactly, you will then be given a golden glowing key that unlocks a secret magical door that happiness can be found behind. I am telling you this now, THERE IS NO “KEY” TO HAPPINESS. Just as there is no right or wrong way to BE happy, nor is there a right or wrong way to get there. There isn’t just one set of rules that everyone needs to follow in order live a happy life.

Now, please know that I am not shunning these types articles. I can fully appreciate their good intentions and I think that this whole wave of positivity our generation seems to be creating is amazing. I feel like its a nice transition from the romanticizing of sadness we seemed to be caught in for such a long time. For years, I scrolled through Facebook and Twitter seeing sad post after sad post. Tumblr was just this giant pool of depression and pain, with sad quote, after sad quote, after sad quote. Recently though, there has been a gradual mood shift. It seems like a majority of people are trying to better their lives and working towards becoming the best possible versions of themselves. We’ve become all about freedom and promoting that it is a GOOD thing to be different. AND THIS IS AWESOME.

However, it seems like we sometimes get caught up in trying to follow this set of ground rules that someone on the internet said would make us happy. Then, when they don’t work, we get discouraged and feel as if there is something wrong with us. Doing yoga in the mornings, drinking more green tea and blowing all of your savings on giant trip across South East Asia is NOT going to suddenly grant you a lifetime of elation.

There aren’t things you do to BECOME happy, there are things you do because you ARE happy. A few weeks ago I caught up with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in a few months. He began telling me that he was in the process of making some changes in his life in order to be happier and feel better. Naturally, this was something I was fully supportive of. However, as he began explaining to me the steps that he was taking to find happiness, I realized that something was off. He started telling me about his new “hippie” lifestyle and his venture into vegetarianism. He went on to say that he admired the lifestyle that he was trying to imitate and hoped that by doing so, he would find the happiness that these “modern day hippies” seemed to have.

I later asked him how the vegetarianism fit into his new plan and why exactly he had chosen to give up meat. He responded by telling me that he knew of many vegetarians who lived happily and he hoped this change in diet would also benefit him the same way. Now...while I could see that his intentions were in the right place, I couldn’t help but think that he was going about this whole thing completely backwards. These vegetarians that he was referring to, gave up meat because of their beliefs and values. Maybe they are very concerned about animal rights or maybe it has something to do with their religious beliefs. Either way they are happy because they made a change in their life that helped them support their personal beliefs, not simply because they stopped eating meat.

I think the whole issue with our generation and this never ending search for happiness, is that we’ve been looking for it in all of the wrong places. I know I certainly was. It took me practically my whole life to figure out that it was up to me to CHOOSE to be happy. I could create any kind of life for myself that I wanted, but I would never be happy with it if I didn’t constantly choose to see the good in each day that I was lucky enough to have.

So often we allow our desires to control our happiness. Say you’ve been looking at this gorgeous pair of heels online for weeks. And somehow you’ve convinced yourself that this pair of heels is going to make your whole life better (ladies...do not act like you don’t know what I’m talking about). You know you’re legs are going to look amazing in them and they’re totally going to spice up like six different outfits that are hanging in your closet. You KNOW that when you walk into the club on Friday night wearing those heels, you’re going to feel like the bad bitch you’ve been waiting to be. So eventually, you break down and put the $300 on your charge card and justify the purchase with how happy these shoes are going to make you. So then, 5-7 business days later, you finally get to open up their box and slip them on. You stand in front of the mirror for a good 5 minutes admiring how beautiful they are and for those few minutes….you feel happy.

But then what happens? What happens once you take the shoes off? What about next season when those heels are out of style and you realize that they give you blisters? Where did that happiness go? You we’re only temporarily happy, because for a few minutes you did not want for anything. You had exactly what you wanted. But, then eventually you wanted something else and that happiness wore off. And so the cycle continued.

There is a quote that I love that says “Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you’re in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.” I feel like this one of the most true statements I’ve heard in a long time. Never tie your happiness to something you could lose. Do not tie your happiness to your girlfriend or your job or your shiny new car.

Create a happiness within yourself that cannot be taken from you. Become inspired by your own life! Wake up each morning and think about all of the things and people you have to be thankful for. Appreciate all of the lessons life has been teaching you and grow from them. Decide what it is that you want out of life and go after it! Figure out where it is that you want to be in a week, or a month, or a year, or 10 years and take one small step each day towards getting there. It’s amazing what setting and accomplishing goals, even tiny ones, can do for a person’s self confidence.

This is your life and you’re in control over the way you feel about it. Everyone is capable and deserving of being happy. You just have to figure out what works for you. Not what everyone else thinks works for them. Happiness is always in and around you. You just have to be willing to see it.

XOXO, Dani Kye