BE HAPPY

I asked a number of my friends what would make them happy, like really happy. Some of the answers were logically what everyone else would say.

Here are a few. Money, someone who makes me laugh, when am not hurt as in when there is no one stressing me. Others were unexpected, for example a baby who doesn’t cry at night, sex, a lot of things, matoke and stew; and some guy said ‘a cat’.

But what really makes people happy? Can a single thing make you happy your entire life? If your priorities change, do the things that make you happy change?

A lot of people are not sure what makes them happy. Money, a good job and recognition can make someone happy for a period of time, but then, in the long run people get tired of routines and the attention that comes with them. The friend I asked took an average of ten seconds to come up with an answer. Most of the answers started with ‘many things….. Or I guess……. Or that is really hard but…….’.

Happiness is related to self realization. Knowing who you are first and then working to make you happy. Without understanding yourself well, you would never know where your happiness lies.

As a necessity, you need a positive attitude towards life and the challenges that comes with it. The challenges should be seen less as stumbling blocks and more as the stuff that will make you happy after you overcome them.

Appreciate small things. Sometimes the smallest of events can turn into one of the best inventions in history. Everyone knows Isaac Newton not because an orange interrupted his hobby of sleeping under a tree but entirely because unlike most people would have, he didn’t just eat the orange and go back to sleep. He thought, an opportunity fell from the tree, and he utilized it.

When you decide to peg your happiness on things that you can’t control like how much you earn or how much sex you get, you are playing a gamble with your moods. If you decide that finding a person who appreciates you, makes you laugh and never stresses you will make you happy, you are deriving your happiness from the behavior of other people, what if you are disappointed.

Happiness is not in the hands of other people, it’s not bought, and it doesn’t come with a good job. It is in us. Inside every one of us there is the trigger that excites our moods. You choose to be happy even though whatever you earn is for subsistence only. You choose to be happy even though she left you for that lecturer. You choose to be happy even if your baby cries throughout the night and you choose to be happy even when your matoke and stew turns into ugali and soup.

Happiness is a choice, not a person, not materials, and definitely not food