Perhaps the question I have isn’t so much as to ask how do we find happiness. Nor does the question become where do we look. However, and more valuable is the question that asks, how do we keep our pleasure center intact? How do we find rewards in unrewarding times?
I think this is important to talk about.

How do we feed our spirit on days when our motivation is low? Better yet, I will refer to a paraphrased quote from the first American Judo Championship gold medalist, AnnMaria Demars, who said, “You’re not training to be your best. You’re training to be your best on your worst day.”
I think this is brilliant.

There is one thing that I know in my heart, which is very simple. It is equally crazy yet this is all part of life.
The one thing I know is that at one point or another, we have to go crazy. I mean it. We have to go absolutely nuts.
We have to lose our minds at least a little bit or at least once. We have to do this every once in a while too, just to let off some steam, or to bring down the house, to go as absolutely wild, or at minimum, we have to allow ourselves the absolute dignity of being so out-of-hand and let ourselves go.
Whether we dance or sing or we howl or celebrate, I don’t care what we do or how this looks.
The truth is, life is short.
Times will be hard and by any means, there has to be a time and a place where we can be free enough to laugh out loud or scream at the top of our lungs.

I think about this –
There are more than 7 billion people in this world. I think about the craziest concept which is the fact that for whatever the reasons may be or in whichever way our paths have gone, somehow, here we are, connected by the directions of fate or destiny.
I think that’s wild.
I think about the hours and the days and the energies we have wasted on people, places or things that were not meant for us. I think we knew that somehow – something was not rightbyet we tried or we struggled. Or we accepted the unfitting challenges; or we accepted “what is” as if to be some common or norm and meanwhile, there is so much more out in this world.
Only, we never knew it.
We never believed that life could be anything other than what it is to us.

Forget the world for a moment. Forget the bills we have to pay.
Forget the taxes and the insurance, the rent, or the mortgage that’s due at the beginning of every month.
Forget the pile of things that weigh on your shoulders.
Forget about the bouts and the fights and the arguments and just for now, think about the one thing that makes you happy.

What is it?
What comes to mind?
I think this is a great question to ask.

I think that since this journal is designed to discover happiness, then it is important to go back to the very basic steps to either define or discover what the word happiness means.
To be happy or to be content, or satisfied. Or more, to have a presence of something that either withstands or endures beyond the circumstances around us.
To be happy; as in to be unmoved by sadness or undeterred by the harshness of our life’s situations and by this, we can feel and process and go through life without allowing instances or situations to imply emotions and dictate our best levels of “self.”

Music . . .
Safe to say that I have my own soundtrack that fits my life. Safe to say that yes, there are songs and various types of music which depicts or defines my best version of happiness.
And sure, not all tastes are the same. Not all music is the same and yes, I can say that I like different songs for different reasons. I like different music for different reasons too.
I like the way a song can come up out of nowhere and bring me back to a time long ago or forgotten yet a song comes on and just like that, I remember everything.

But more, I can say that I have a compilation of songs that remind me of good times and bad. I have songs that are bittersweet and some, well, some of the songs on my personal playlist are songs that help unlock the emotions to a time or a place.

There is something I missed in my life. Or, maybe this is something that I skipped or never touched or felt. And there is a phase that people live through or a period of time that everyone goes through; yet, this is a period of my life that seems blank, like a page that went missing from a story only I know the story. I know the chapters to this novel. I know that my history is there and I know why, where, and what happened from the good to the bad and the beautiful to the ugly.
Only, there is something missing. There is something that never happened or that I never experienced; in which case, there is a blank spot in my life to which even now, I am and have always been looking to fill this so-called emptiness or void – to provide depth and detail to a dream and remove a vacancy from my heart.

And I find myself climbing and looking to reach the top. I am moving and striving to find that place where I can say, yes, I made it!
I am working to find that spot or that pinnacle, that insurmountable or unsurpassable or grand plateau where all is green or summery, or perfect and at last, I have found that presence of self. I have reached the point of highest consciousness and behold, this is my best possible potential.

I suppose it makes sense to talk about this now.
I suppose if we are looking to find happiness or if we are looking to improve our smiles and find the simple things that boost our spirits, it pays to be aware of the items that steal our smiles or swipe our happiness.
There are thefts in this world that go far beyond the materialistic thefts. There is a theft of service which takes place more commonly than we think.
There’s a term that can be used for the biggest culprit of all.
And that’s a bully.  

I want to let go . . .
I want to shed that excess skin. Better yet, I want to get down to that thing we call our true self.
Know what I mean?
I want to rid myself of the layers that have formed over the years and as I remove each mask and let go of my shields and weapons of our so-called self-destruction, I want to remove the bricks in the wall. I want to rid myself of the walls around me; and so, as each brick is removed, I want to allow the grace of sunlight to pass through. I want the light to brighten my perspective. I want this to give sight to my incidental blindness and be free from the situational blurs that alter our vision. I want to let the light shine through, as if to dismantle the walls around me; as if to build bridges, not walls, and as if to deconstruct an old world that opens me up and allows new branches of sunlight to shine down and grace my skin.