Happiness, does it exist or No?

by Dr. Peterson Alcide

Happiness! Something that everyone has been working towards since the beginning of life, something that has been the center of everyone’s lifelong dreams, “to be happy.” Some have died looking for it, some have lived centuries chasing it, yet very few have sincerely admitted that they have truly experienced happiness during their lifetime.

Has anyone ever been truly happy? Is there such a thing as happiness? or Is that an allusion we’ve created in our mind to make us feel that we’re working towards a goal?

People from different walk of life have been searching for happiness, rich, poor, commoners, celebrities; they have all confessed of how unhappy they are, some even expressed it through their actions, by misbehaving, thrill-seeking or even committing suicide.

Dr. Jack Schafer once said, “Happiness without Sadness has no meaning,” that explain my mother’s lesson to us when growing up, her ideology of working hard for the Lord on earth will pay off with true happiness later in Heaven. Dr. Schafer’s quote still doesn’t explain at which point in our lives we, as individuals, would feel complete happiness.

After the completion of a short survey on whether happiness exist or not, the response from 100 people from all around the US and a few outside of the US, some successful, some are still working on it. The responses I received were more surprising than I expected. Knowing that 80% of the survey takers believed that happiness exists was less surprising than finding out what they believed to be the key to happiness. Most people focus on their present status, some focus on their achievements and others lean on their faith and what they hope to be.

The other 20% who does not believe that happiness exist, is it because of their current situation or are they focusing on the wrong thing to make them happy? Either way, something is missing and finding it would take more then just dreaming of happiness.

In the search of happiness, there are moments in our lives, we stop to ask ourselves, what would make me happy? How can I achieve that goal that would finally make me a happy individual? I can’t help but thinking that, maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way; maybe happiness is not something we add to our lives, but rather something we can only divulge by taking away unnecessary things or people. Sometimes we bring negative thought to ourselves that renders us unhappy, and if we have them around, reaching the level of happiness we all crave becomes impossible.

In a conversation with a friend, he pointed out that happiness comes from within, which sounds obvious, but it was then, it clicked that until someone choses to be happy with what they have, and what they have achieved thus far, one will never be happy. We cannot be happy with what we plan in the future, for we have no idea whether they will come to reality or not. We are to be happy with the choices we’ve made, the paths we’ve taken and the life we’ve lived. The future isn’t where your happiness lies, it lies in your present. Rather than continuing an endless journey for things to fill that hole, maybe we would be better of focusing on releasing the things holding us back. We will then realize that, that hole we felt was never there and the happiness we’ve been craving has always been there. To answer the original question, happiness does exist, if you want it to.