Happiness is a Choice

Hey there! So I know I haven't really posted in a bit, and I sorta just recreated this website after- like- a year of inactivity, deleting old posts and, well, I guess resurrecting this blog and giving it a new purpose. 

Anyways, so for our first post on this newly resurrected blog, I decided to talk about happiness. I'm sure we all want to be somewhat happy, no matter who we are or where we're from. And here I'm simply speaking from my own experience- which isn't much really, having lived for only 15 years- and I'm still learning too on this topic. But I thought I'd share what I learned last year about happiness. 

I used to be so afraid. Afraid of losing happiness. Afraid of being lonely. Afraid of being depressed. Afraid of people disliking me. Afraid of losing a friend.

I kept chasing happiness. I was plagued by anxiety, stress, and fear. That year I really went through extreme highs and lows, emotionally. Part of it may be caused by hormones. The mood swings. You know, puberty. However, hormones don’t fully determine how we feel. Our emotions, our hormones, don’t dominate us. They don’t control us. Happiness isn’t a bunch of chemicals. It isn’t what happens. It isn’t whether people like me or not. It isn't whether I get what I want. Happiness is a choice. 

Happiness is fleeting. But joy isn’t. True joy is being happy with what you have. Instead of crying over what could’ve been, what should’ve been, I can choose to focus on what I still have. And then I’ll be happy. 

I can’t control what happens. But I can control how I react to them. I can choose to not mope or sulk over them. I can choose to be happy and grateful with what I have. Happiness is a choice. 

It scares me, honestly, that at one point of my freshman year I got rather suicidal. I couldn’t find a purpose in life. Everything felt… meaningless. I’ve thought about Ecclesiastes. How everything is meaningless. A chasing after the wind. 

But now I think I understood. Understood what Solomon meant when he wrote that. Meaningless. He wasn’t calling life meaningless. He was calling the pursuits in life meaningless. My chasing for status was meaningless. My chasing to be happy was meaningless. My chasing for being pretty and popular was meaningless. Meaningless. A chasing after the wind. “For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?” Why should I chase these things? I’m not even promised tomorrow. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. It is best to enjoy the gifts from God. Happiness is in accepting what I have. It is being thankful to the Lord for His blessings. 

Happiness doesn’t happen to you. Happiness is a choice. It is how you look at things. It is how you choose to embrace the things that happen in life. 

That's about what I have today. What are your thoughts about happiness? Do you agree or disagree? Feel free to let me know in the comments!