HOW TO STAY HAPPY7 min read

Have you ever felt like a piece of dog shit? if yes, then congratulations, you are ready to know how to stay happy.

No need to start telling stories of great men and giving wise quotes just to explain how to be happy, it is quite simple, happiness is when you are feeling happy. Whenever people start looking for a way to be happy, they are definitely not happy

CHASING HAPPINESS

As we grow up, we have lots of experiences, we start with puberty which messes with our minds – making us emotional about a lot of things, causing us to acquire new desires like sexual urges and lots more.

With an increase in our wants comes the realization that we can’t get all we crave, this, of course, causes Unhappiness, which in turn leads to a desire to get happy i.e chase happiness.

At this developmental age, the chase for happiness is quite simply Pleasure.

Basically, when people fail to get what they want they always look for alternatives, this is because not getting what one wants can be painful and makes people feel terrible, and no one wants to feel that way, so the chase for happiness ensues.

Partying, experimenting with people’s orifices, drinking concoctions, doing drugs, devouring adult magazines as well as related websites and smoking every available vegetable on the surface of the planet are common ways of chasing this happiness. However, it(happiness) always seems to escape the grip whenever it is gotten. This is because happiness is not pleasure

When we get tired of it all and start asking for help, we start hearing things like “you have to lower your expectations”, “if you don’t expect anything you can’t be disappointed” and so on. But this, of course, is misleading, life should be a daring adventure or nothing. It is unsettling to live a boring life, and you don’t have to

A DEARING ADVENTURE

Countless people before us have done great and marvelous things, like building the first automobile, discovering electricity, building great cities and empires. Some others have found true love and raised wonderful families. In our times, so many people have become famous for doing what they love, like the footballers, actors, musicians and that guy who seem to have slept with most of the girls in school. However, they all shear something in common, they always want more

Somehow humans always feel the need to do one extra thing to be happy, it always seems happiness is around the corner, waiting for us to make that final turn and have it for good.

Once in a while, we feel the warm embrace of happiness, those moments when we gained the crown, but it is always after these moments that it leaves us. Then we return to our normal state, seeking it once more, from something else, maybe the next girl or bottle

If happiness won’t stick with anyone, maybe happiness doesn’t want to end up with anyone. But there’s a way out

HOW TO MAKE HAPPINESS STICK WITH YOU

By this time, you must have gotten the picture, rich men crave more money, and feel terrible when they lose one of their assets.

So, how do we make happiness STICK?!.

The answer is em…

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There is something you need to hear first, as much as it is tempting to give a direct answer to the question, it is not a question that can be given a direct answer. for a start every individual is different in a way, not everyone can scream for joy or shed tears like we do.

There was an experiment conducted by a scientist called Gilbert. The research simply proved that no matter what we went through, no matter how great or terrible it was, with time our level of happiness would return to its normal baseline. And this is not because we would forget the details, no, this is because we would actually convince ourselves either that the experience wasn’t so terrible or that it wasn’t so great after all

This phenomenon is dubbed the “psychological immune system”. It is necessary to feel bad and thus desire to be happy because it is necessary for our survival

Feeling bad is actually helpful to our survival, it makes us want to do things, things that would make life better and more tolerable, this is just how we are. However, happiness doesn’t have to be so elusive

Remember when I said something about returning back to the baseline of happiness, well it appears this baseline can actually be moved around, a little further away from unhappiness towards happiness. And this is the key to being happy

APPROACHING HAPPINESS

When it comes to discovering what makes us happy we really do a messy job. A few years ago I could have sworn that having my first kiss would make me hysterical, uhm… I was totally wrong, it didn’t feel like anything I’ve ever imagined or heard, it actually made me feel, quite numb.

Like my first kiss, it appears that the end isn’t as important as the means. that’s to say the struggle is actually the reward and not the promised crown

This is the nature of happiness. And this isn’t just about my kiss or your kiss, it’s about the journey.

If you really want to be happy, then you have to tweak the process, you have to reengineer the way you achieve your success.

Sticking with my first kiss analogy, here is how you make yourself happy

HOW TO STAY HAPPY

1. Do something that scares you: pushing yourself past your limits or beyond your fears is a great boost for our happiness baseline. If you were to summon the courage to talk to that hot girl in class, just that singular act of boldness is sure to keep you happy throughout the day. This can be said of any other endeavor. You just have to dare. Remember you may not always be successful, but if you don’t try at all you would never find out if you could have succeeded, and success does come in unexpected places and times. Besides, the success isn’t the aim, remember
2. Look inwards if you ever need validation: if you truly want to be happy, then you have to reduce your dependence on external sources for validation. You should develop self-love and belief, you can develop this love by developing yourself. For instance, a person who has developed himself, and is still willing to keep developing would take insults and criticisms as part of life, knowing fully well that the insults aren’t really a reflection of who they are and that each criticism is a call to keep on developing at an even greater pace and dimension
3. Fight for something greater than yourself: every human must believe in something, it may be God(s), it may be money, it may be Humanity, whatever the choice is, it should be something you value more than yourself. This is because they give life a meaning, they give us the reason to go on. they give us hope
4. Have an optimistic mindset, always see the possibilities no matter how slim. You are surely going to be disappointed on few or several occasions, but you would get to come across more opportunities that would either bring you good fortune or give you a much-needed experience. someday you would remember the struggle and smile.
5. Always prepare as much as possible, you don’t want a kiss when you haven’t brushed your teeth, do you?. Though you don’t have to be absolutely ready, you still got to have a degree of preparedness, like completing your studies and getting a degree

CONCLUSION

Happiness is an elusive thing, chase it and you would never find it. This is how nature has made us. The only solution is to learn how to take things, accept the pain, learn from it, enjoy your rewards, celebrate success, and enjoy your life.

Have a nice life

REFERENCE

Psychological Immune system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stumbling_on_Happiness