The pursuit of happiness has been philosophized about, written about, and sung about in just about every way imaginable, and yet no one seems to agree on it. We can barely agree on what happiness itself actually is (Eudaimonia? Joy? Lack of pain?). And yet it’s something so fundamental to how we live our lives. No one wants to live an unhappy life, but if there’s ever a time to use the ol’ “it’s so much easier said than done,” this is a damn good one.

Here’s my take: Happiness is a choice.

In no way am I implying it’s an easy one, but I do think it is one. No one can make you be happy or take it away from you. It’s certainly harder at times, when other people are being particularly irksome or life throws obstacles of any size at you. But I do think it’s a choice.

Happiness works in tandem with acceptance (a topic on which I will surely wax poetic soon). Choosing to accept reality, even when it involves accepting a painful truth, is the first step. It’s the real life equivalent of the “red pill blue pill” decision in the matrix.

Happiness is a habit. It requires work. It’s a yearly, daily, minutely choice, but it gets easier with practice and consistency. I’m struggling to write about how exactly to go about that choice because that’s something that I think everyone has to discover for themselves.

I’ve often preached open-mindedness, specifically maintaining a lack of judgement, towards other people. Someone’s choice to live their life differently than I do isn’t grounds enough to lose respect for them. In fact, I often see it as a great opportunity to strike meaningful conversation and learn more about the world. The times when I falter with this approach to human interaction is when I feel like they are unhappy and know that they can be happier, but are avoiding it because of insecurity or fear or some other reason. To me that feels like actively wasting life away, which is a hard thing for me to be uncritical of. (Let me be clear, I’m not saying I’m right in being judgemental of that.)

I leave you with some questions:
Is a constant state of happiness possible?
Do you think happiness is a choice?
Do you feel internally happy right now? Why/why not?