It is, however, very important to realize where feelings of happiness come from. Do you know? Or do you feel that the feeling of happiness was entirely random? But what if it’s not? What if it has been here so many times before, coming from the same source, only we didn’t notice it? Can you define what makes you happy? You should know it so that you can turn to the source in times of need. When you learn to observe happiness, you’ll be able to turn to it like a sailor turns the sail on a ship to catch the wind and move forward. You’ll feel on your face where it’s blowing from, from which people, situations, circumstances, deeds. We’ve created maps to not get lost. So you need such a map of happiness. Mark your checkpoints. Draw a map of your entire life. Every nook and cranny. It will help you navigate any life situation, any place you find yourself in, it will help you process the emotions you feel. Later, you’ll be able to connect it with a moral compass, and your path will forever be the right one.
Even the use of all our senses may not help us become happy until we realize it. How many times a day do you feel happy, don’t realize it, and forget about that particular situation, person, emotion, and feeling? It’s like taking a banknote out of your pocket and dropping it. If you do it many times, one day you’ll find out that you’re poor. And it’s the same with happiness. We’re often happy, we just don’t realize it, we don’t remember it. We should save every moment of happiness in a safe, just like money. One day we’ll open the safe, and seeing the pile of banknotes, we’ll realize that we’re already rich. Just as you feel good about yourself for saving up for a vacation, you’ll feel good about the many happy moments you’ve experienced lately. That’s why it’s very important to realize what made you happy. Every detail, every little thing. Maybe even write it down on paper. And you’ll realize that you might be essentially a happy person.
Remember and constantly remind yourself of all these happy moments, replicate them. When you’re alone, feeling sad, bored, traveling, ironing, cooking, waiting, working monotonously. Basically, anytime you have the time for it! On one hand, you won’t leave an empty space in your mind that negative emotions or thoughts could fill, and on the other, that feeling of happiness will push you somewhere.
It is entirely normal that you cannot be happy all the time. Happiness isn’t a choice, otherwise everyone would choose it, right? Negative feelings are natural and necessary. Be grateful for them. They help you recognize incoming and present danger, keep you alive. The brain is trained for that. To recognize everything bad and remember it. It’s a matter of survival. However, our brain is plastic and can be retrained not to notice those negative feelings but rather the positive ones. And to derive the same benefits from them as well.
Just as the feeling of fear keeps us alive in life, so does the feeling of happiness. We will know why we want to live. We cannot choose happiness and how we will feel, but we can choose our way of thinking. And by this thinking, gradually teach the brain not to seek out these negative feelings. Later it will understand that the same role can be fulfilled by positive feelings too. Imagine the brain making you happy at every opportunity… When someone raises their voice at you, the brain will send a signal: don’t worry, just listen to what they’re saying. If they’re right, learn from it; if they’re not, everything is still fine as before. You’ll be lying in the hospital with a broken leg, not nervous about all that’s happening, but happy about what awaits you thanks to your healed leg.
Work will no longer be hated because you’ll realize that it provides you with warm meals on the table and that someone is willing to pay you for your services and time. Seeing your “unsuccessful” children won’t feel like a personal failure, but an opportunity to become a better parent. And to program the brain this way, you must first learn to read and write. So, recognize and remember all the moments when you felt happiness. It’ll be like going to the gym. Gradually, you’ll know that when you exercise on a particular machine, a specific muscle will grow because of it. In the gym, too, at the beginning, you wander up and down, but after a month, you have a workout plan and the first results are visible.
Train your brain like this too, to realize which muscle will grow on which machine. Later, you’ll do it together automatically. Start with, for example, your photos in a regular or digital photo album. Begin there. Which situations made you happy? Which people? Extract the reasons from them, repeat them over and over, and notice what’s happening around you. If you turn the magnet with the right pole, another magnet will soon stick to it.
Happiness is a result, not a choice. We cannot decide to be happy, but we can choose to think positively. And by this thinking, maximize the amount of happiness in our lives. However, we won’t feel happy all the time. And chasing happiness will make us unhappy. Happiness is simply like an orgasm, the feeling of quenching thirst, the relief of a wound, the first bite of good food. It should resuscitate us in life, not serve us.
That’s why many people are unhappy because they didn’t realize that they cannot be happy all the time. Moments when we are not happy can be filled with positive thinking. It’s like sex, where we may or may not reach orgasm at the end. But the act itself pleases us similarly. It’s not necessary to reach the peak. Achieving it will be the icing on the cake. Therefore, happiness is a result of thinking, effort. And don’t be misled that everyone around you is permanently happy. You just tend to put together the disparate puzzle of many feelings, many people. When you see 10 happy people during the day, you feel like the whole day was happy for them. However, you may have seen only one happy moment of their day. And when you add that you didn’t remember the unhappy moments you came into contact with during the day, it will naturally seem to you that everyone except you is happy.
You’ll find a similar parallel on social media. You see 30 happy photos, which sound like thirty happy days. However, it’s just thirty moments and maybe only thirty seconds out of the whole month. And some of those photos are just a facade, and there were only a few happy moments. The fact that you don’t feel happy at this moment means that you will probably feel happy soon..