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Real Stories

What is Happiness to You?

There are so many little ways in which you can create your own happiness. There’s something to be said for enjoying the simple things in life—especially those that can occur every day. It’s important to recognize and channel the happiness you get from those things as often as possible.

Some of the most seemingly unassuming moments in life are where I find a happy feeling. Here are just a few:

  • Receiving handwritten letters in the post
  • Driving along with the windows down, wind in your hair, radio turned up loud and singing along
  • Looking up at the stars each night
  • Cracking the ice in a puddle that has frozen over
  • Everything about spring—buds forming and blooming into flowers, baby animals, blue skies and (hopefully) sunnier days
  • Cooking a brilliant tasting meal from scratch
  • Sunrises and sunsets
  • Homemade cookies straight from the oven
  • The sense of relief and satisfaction once you complete a set piece of work or project
  • Swimming in the sea
  • Having a solo dance party in your bedroom
  • Freshly cut grass
  • The smell of a new book or magazine
  • Sunshine streaming in through a window and warming up a patch on the floor
  • Making someone else smile

Hopefully this list will inspire you to reflect on the things that bring you happiness, too. Appreciating the little things might sound cliché, but it’s important, and something I think people easily forget to do. You can find happiness in abundance all around you if you look for it. It may not bring a huge, life-changing chunk of happiness to your life—but it’s a moment of happiness, nonetheless.

I think another essential part of happiness is learning to let things go, especially if they won’t matter in a few weeks’ time. This is something I’m trying hard to focus on, because I feel everything so deeply. It’s important to live in the moment and tackle each day as it comes without ‘what if-ing’ and worrying about what might or might not be—otherwise, you will never feel truly happy. You owe yourself peace of mind and happiness. Please allow yourself to have it.

Above all, know that happiness is not a destination. It’s not something that can be bought or achieved, which will then stay with you for evermore. You constantly have to source it and create it. Undoubtedly, you will have your bad days and down days—days when you’re stuck in a rut and can’t seem to find a way out. But nothing is ever permanent, and you will find happiness again. You will be happy again—I promise.

Like this post? View similar content here: Cultivating Happiness
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by Hannah Baxter

I am a First Class journalism and international relations graduate, based in Scotland in the UK. Writing has always been such a passion of mine and a core part of my life and I hope to find any way to further pursue it and spread positivity with it wherever I go.

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