It seems to me that enough people are looking for something they wouldn’t recognize if they found it – Happiness. Happiness needs a reference.

Instead of scatter searching for what makes you happy, find out, first, what happiness feels like for you. Too often we go looking for the ideal, rather than taking the time to find the feel .

“I want to be happy” is a statement that often suggests the target is out of sight. That means the person doesn’t have a handle on what happiness is. Reminds me of a story . . .

When I was in my mid 30s, we were on a family vacation at the Jersey shore. This was a place where I spent quite a few summers when I was a child into my early 20s. We had since moved away and hadn’t lived in that area for many years. We decided to take the kids to the boardwalk one evening and I remember wondering aloud if I would run into anyone I knew. Then I laughed. It dawned on me that the people I was looking for were 16 years old. I could have spilled ice cream on them and not recognized them.

Such is the case for the elusive happiness.

The first step in finding happiness is finding out what happiness feels like for you. Think of a time when you felt happy and catalogue that feeling. Then find another time you felt happy and let that feeling wash over you. After a few practice sessions, you know what happiness is.

Once you know what happiness feels like, you can stop searching for it in another person, place or thing because then you’ll know that happiness is a feeling inside of you.

Happiness is a pleasant feeling but not a permanent state. The quest seems to be to find the state of happiness and put down roots there. That’s impossible. The happy feeling comes and goes. We would do best to appreciate it while it’s here and walk in its direction when it’s not. But that takes recognition of what happiness feels like.

If you don’t know what happiness feels like for you, you will go on a never ending search attempting to find what you already possess.

Get a feel for happiness and you’ll spend a lot less time looking for it.

All the best,

John