As part of my behavioral therapy, my psychiatrist made me write down common emotions I feel and try to define what they mean to me (how they make me think, act, feel) – and surprisingly, the one I found the absolute hardest was happiness. I think happiness is a very broad concept, and it can’t be defined because it’s different for everyone. I have asked people before to define happiness to me, my boyfriend said it was when he felt great about the world and at peace, compared to my psychopath ex who told me his happiness was when everything was going his way. To both people, that definition of happiness was everything. That was how they perceived it in a general sense, and how they believed everyone else perceived it. In fact, when I told my ex that wasn’t necessarily what happiness was – he was shocked that we don’t feel it the same way. But now I know I’m wrong. There is no right way to feel happiness, to each their own – and I’ve come to realize that your own personal happiness is creating as a result of all your past experiences; the extent to which you have felt sadness and pain, the extent to which you have felt joy; and happiness learns to fall somewhere along that scale relative to your life.

Happiness is confusing to me, and I don’t see it as a goal I need to reach because it would be disappointing. Happiness does not last and being in it and content in it should be appreciated, but without the assumption that it will continue.