I have come to realize that the biggest mistake many of us make is tying our happiness to people, things, or moments that can change.
We often say, “I will be happy when this happens,” or “I will finally be at peace when I have that.” But the truth is, that kind of happiness is temporary because once that thing or person is no longer there, your peace goes with it.
I used to think happiness came from being surrounded by love, success or comfort until life showed me that even in the middle of all that, you can still feel empty if you haven’t found peace within yourself.
Happiness isn’t found or made, it is grown. Think about it like this: you can’t find happiness lying somewhere on the street and you also can’t force it into existence overnight. It is more like planting a garden inside yourself, some days you water it and some days you just sit in it but it is yours and nobody can take it away from you.
I used to be that person who needed everything to line up perfectly then maybe, just maybe, I would be happy. The day my relationship ended, I thought my happiness packed its bags and left with him, I genuinely believed I needed another person to feel whole, I would wake up feeling empty, go to bed feeling incomplete.
Then I lost my mum, the one person whose presence made everything feel right, we were so close and she made me really happy but when she died, it felt like my existence left with her, I didn’t know how to function without that piece of my heart that she carried then one random afternoon, I was cooking dinner alone, singing off key to some old song and I caught myself smiling, like I am actually smiling and nobody was there to make me happy, no text message came in, it was just me, being enough for myself and that moment taught me something powerful, when you depend on external things for your happiness, you are basically handing someone else the remote control to your peace but creating your own happiness doesn’t mean being alone or not needing people, it simply means you are already okay before they show up, you are already at peace before things go right, people and good moments become additions to your joy, not the foundation of it.
I started small, really small and slowly, I became my own source of comfort now but don’t get me wrong, I still love when my people show up for me, I still feel amazing when things go well but the difference? I don’t fall apart when they don’t, my happiness doesn’t live in someone else’s pocket anymore.
Happiness is a choice you make every single day but it is also a skill you build, you can’t just wake up one morning and decide to be happy if you have spent years training yourself to find problems in everything then you have to practice finding light even in dim rooms.
Some days will be harder than others, some days you will need to remind yourself three times before noon that you are okay and that is totally fine because building your own happiness isn’t about being positive all the time, rather it is about knowing that even when things fall apart, you won’t fall apart with them.
So, is happiness found or made? For me, it is neither and both 😊 I don’t go searching for it like I am on some treasure hunt and I don’t sit down manufacturing it from scratch every morning, rather I create space for it, I protect it and I stop letting temporary things steal my permanent peace.
I grow it daily and I have learned to be the gardener of my own joy because the moment you realize you are more than enough for yourself, that is when other people can finally see you as such too, that is when you stop draining others trying to fill your own cup and that is when you become whole.
And whole people? They attract genuine connections, real peace and lasting happiness not because they found it somewhere out there but because they built it right where they stand, that is my truth and my choice and honestly? It is the most freeing thing I have ever done for myself 💃
This is my entry for the real talk prompt #12 and I will be inviting all my amazing readers to participate in this week's prompt
Thank you so much for taking time to visit my blog, until next time ❣️