What does happiness mean to you?

A few months ago, someone asked me: What does happiness mean to you?
I still don’t have a definite answer to that.
My first thought is always that it might be all the small things in life that make us happy. These things we happen to see at a usual day, like a genuine smile, or some beautiful flowers, or laughing with friends.

But isn’t this rather joy than happiness? In my opinion, it is. So, what is happiness?

Is it all these things together? Are we happy if we have a lot of joyful moments in our lives? Is happiness the ability to enjoy these moments?

Happiness seems to be a rather permanent state. When someone asks you “Are you happy?” it is usually meant “Are you satisfied with your life?” rather than “Do you feel joyful at the moment?” At least, that’s how it would be understood in German.
But can happiness really be permanent? Is that even possible? If we were in a state of permanent and infinite happiness, would we even know we were happy? To know what being happy means, we must also know the opposite.
Furthermore, humans seem to have infinite needs. Given this, can they ever be perfectly happy?

While writing this, I remember the differences between English and German. In German, there is more or the less the same translation for luck and happiness, that is “Glück”. Being happy would be translated with “glücklich sein”. But “Glück haben” means to be lucky, whereas happiness in “What does happiness mean to you?” is also translated with Glück.

If this is so closely related, does that mean happiness is something we have no influence on? Can’t we affect it at all? Does it only depend on how lucky we are?

Or is it rather a way of how we see things? Does it depend on one's ability to focus on the good things in life? Is it a combination of both?
Is there someone in this world who is perfectly happy?

However, to answer this, first there should be an idea of what happiness is. If it really is something like a permanent condition, happiness cannot be the same as joy, because joy is not permanent, provided that there are not just ups but also downs in life.

But then what is it that makes us happy? Is that different for everyone, is it totally subjective and relative? Or are there certain things in life that decide on everyone’s happiness? Is it love, friendship, family? Or success? What about money? What I always considered quite interesting is the fact that the pursuit of happiness is mentioned in the US Declaration of Independence. According to an American lecturer of a seminar I had last semester, this refers mainly to property. Clearly, for that you need to have money.

In my opinion, money can certainly make a lot of things easier and by that I mean that it helps if you have enough to be able to pay for your bills and all the necessary things in life without having to worry about it permanently. However, I would never equate money with happiness.
I really don't think you need to be rich in order to be happy. Anyway, if you had to be rich to be happy, the majority of people would never be happy and this is something I refuse to believe.

So, maybe what makes us happy is just everything that makes us smile. Maybe it is indeed all the simple things in life, or rather things that we too often consider as self-evident and given and that are actually not at all simple. Things like having true friends or a supportive family, or being healthy. Maybe it means to enjoy life and its good moments.
 

What does it mean to you? What makes you happy?

Quote of the week #6

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

Gloria Steinem

 

Today, I happened to listen to a song that always reminds me of hope for the future. It was played during our official graduation from school. We had to walk on a red carpet, me and my two best friends together and afterwards we were given our certificates. During that walk the song was played. I remember exactly how I felt that day. We were exceedingly happy to have passed our final exams with good grades. It was our last day as pupils and it felt like our whole future lay ahead of us. After 12 years of school, it was the threshold to a new life. We had so many dreams and hopes. In that moment, we felt as if we could reach anything, as if we could change the world. I know that it was totally exaggerated and unrealistic and it might even seem stupid, but this is what we felt, or it was what I felt. Of course, there is nothing much extraordinary about graduating from school, but for us it was the way to our future, it was like a magic moment. Whenever I listen to that song, it reminds me of that hopeful, exciting feeling and I begin to believe that there is still a lot I can accomplish. It makes me remember my dreams and hopes.

Is it of any good to have dreams? Is it starry-eyed, naïve? Would it be better to not dream at all, to be more realistic?

Is dreaming a way to define and achieve our goals or does it prevent us from living our life?

In my opinion, it is good to have dreams and, as in the quote, it is even a form of planning.
Even if they never come true, at least they give us hope for the future, they make the present a better place. They make us hope for a better future and in some cases they make us do something for this future. Most of the time I am down-to-earth, but in my heart I will never stop having some of those dreams. In my opinion, we should have dreams that are not too unrealistic and then we should try and make these dreams come true.

Do you still have dreams? Did some of your dreams come true when you grew older? Or did you give up your dreams?
Do we change when we grow older? Do we see things in a more realistic way, do our views change?

Well, I think I am still young and I don’t know whether my point of view will change when I am older. Anyway, I don’t feel like that all of the time. There are a lot of days I feel completely different, but I am grateful for those hopeful days.

Smiling at Strangers

Recently, I did sort of an experiment. At first, it wasn’t at all determined to be one. I was just having a nice day at university and for some reason, I don’t even remember it, I was feeling very happy. So, while walking to town to do some errands, I smiled at everyone I met without even thinking about it. I just felt happy and I wanted to share this happiness. But after a short time I realized that most people don’t even look at you while crossing your way. The majority of people were looking at the pavement or in some other direction. Some looked at me, but they seemed to think I was crazy, smiling at strangers.

I started to think about it and I am surprised at how seldom people make eye contact and how rarely they give you a smile.

Of course, there were some exceptions. A lot of men did actually make eye contact and when they did they smiled back. I met someone who seemed to be in a very good mood, too. We were smiling at one another and I could honestly feel his happiness and friendliness and this made me even happier. 

I smiled then more often at strangers, but only on days I felt happy, because I wanted to give a genuine smile to others. On top of that, when I am happy, I can’t help but smile, so it was just a natural thing to do. What I have also recognized is that women were hardly ever looking at me and if they did, they looked away the next second. I think there was just one woman who was smiling back. I couldn’t make out any reasons for that yet. Maybe most men are more of an extrovert sort than women. But I hate to generalize that. Anyway, it wasn’t a representative study or something like that, but it is what I have experienced and I smiled at a lot of people, regardless of which age or gender.

I wonder if this is different in other countries or whether it would have been different if I wasn’t a woman.  Maybe other women tend to smile at men more often. Furthermore, it also depends on the cultural background. At university, we had a workshop on intercultural communication and the teacher, a woman from England who has already been in several countries to do those workshops, told us that when she came to Germany for the first time, she thought that Germans were very unfriendly because they hardly ever smiled at strangers. So this seems to be different in Great Britain and also in the US, I think. In contrast, there was also a Russian girl and she told us she thought Germans were the friendliest people she has ever met, smiling all the time. She explained that it is very uncommon in Russia to smile at others when you don’t know them, but that doesn’t mean at all that they are unfriendly. It is just something you usually only share with close friends.

I thought this to be quite interesting because I have never realized these facts before.

So maybe I too was walking self-absorbed and didn’t recognize other people’s smiles. I think most people here are absorbed in thought and therefore they don’t really recognize what happens around them. Moreover, there can be many reasons. Maybe they were having a bad day and thus it is just natural that they don’t smile at complete strangers.


However, some people even seem to get excited about receiving a little smile without any apparent reason. I enjoy these moments very much, seeing that you can make someone happy, just by smiling.

Happiness is something that always grows when it is shared. And a smile is the easiest way to share it.
 

In any case, a warm and genuine smile is such a valuable thing.

Thank you for reading my posts and for leaving such wonderful comments and opinions on this blog, I am sending you all a smile, although you can’t see it, but it is indeed an honest one. :)

My point of view

I absolutely believe that we should all concentrate on the good things in life, that we should enjoy every little moment and be happy about all the little things that happen around us. I believe we should be grateful for what we have.  We should smile more often to other people (at least here in Germany people don’t do that too often) and we should try to share our happiness. Life is wonderful and valuable and it is too short to be unhappy and to have a negative point of view.  I am absolutely convinced by that.

Nonetheless, of course I know that life is often hard and unfair. Actually, you could say that I had what people call a difficult childhood. Maybe that is where the problems start. Because as I just said, I think that we should all concentrate on the good things in life and be happy about them. This is what I think. But what I feel is so different sometimes. You could say, there is a great difference between my thoughts and my feelings, between the things that I tell other people and the things that I actually feel. Often I concentrate too much on the negative things, I forget the positive ones and I am not grateful for all the good things that happen to me. And I am so often jealous of other people. I don’t really live the life I would like to live. But at the same time I am not able to change this, since I can’t change the present without endangering my future.

But of course I don't tell anyone. I keep smiling and try to convince myself of my own opinion.

Anyway, I won’t change my mind about concentrating on the small good things in life, because, after all, what else can you do to survive the difficult ones?