International Day of Happiness!

Today is International Day of Happiness.

What makes you happy?
What do you do to feel happy?

Happiness comes in many shapes and forms.

For years, my loved ones told me I could never truly be happy—that I expected too much from myself and from them. They reminded me to be grateful, to be content, to remember that someone, somewhere, always had it worse.

What they didn’t realize was how little it would have taken to make me happy.
But then again… I was expecting it from them.

So I changed that expectation.
Easier said than done.

Ironically, it was the lockdown that shifted something in me. It slowed everything down just enough for me to notice what had always been there.

I realized that happiness was never in the big, distant things.
It lived quietly in the small, everyday moments.

A simple walk around the neighborhood.
Pausing to admire whatever was blooming that season.
Breathing it all in.

And above all—time with my family.

While I was busy chasing happiness in places and milestones, it had been right in front of me all along. I just needed a different lens.

So, I juggle four different schedules to create these moments—and somehow, they bring me the deepest joy.
The arguing.
The bickering.
The classic “two against one” debates (in ever-changing combinations).
And the way they always find their way to a solution.

Happiness, indeed.

I stopped chasing happiness… because I found it at home.

And if I’m being completely honest—
it often looks like time spent outdoors. Because when we’re outside, one very important thing disappears from my mental load:

“What’s for dinner?”

And truly, that might just be my purest form of happiness.

So yes… there’s the full story.

My ramblings on this International Day of Happiness.
I hope you find your own little moments of happiness today.

Comments

My self care journey - Oxygen mask.

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