We are all so desperate to find happiness, to hold it within our palms, to tuck it away in some corner of our minds our hearts, to claim it as ours. This is human, natural. It’s not wrong to want to experience joy, to grab onto it for as long as we can.

But have you ever noticed how much time we spend searching? Have you ever stopped to see that perhaps you don’t always have to be looking, running, living in frantic pursuit of what you don’t yet have because what you do have is enough?

I’ve always been fascinated by the word ‘enough,’ by the concept. To be enough, to have enough—I’m still trying to understand what that means or why we chase it. Will we ever know when we have ‘enough’?

What will ‘enough’ look like, and will we finally be satisfied? Or will we go off after the next item on our list?

It’s like this with happiness, too: never enough. We could be laughing, arm-in-arm with someone we love and suddenly want to rush the moment, to make something else happen even when we’re not quite ready for it. We could be dancing, carefree and wild, and suddenly think of something frustrating and lose the energy all around us. We could be loved so deeply, filled so fully with our passions, but still crave something else.

And truthfully, that’s because we don’t understand what happiness is.

Happiness has never been a destination, never a place, never been something that we can reach and then make a home there. Happiness is a perspective. A perspective of wholeness. A perspective of enough.

Enough in the circumstances. Enough in the chaos. Enough in the mess. Enough in the state of ‘not enoughness’—learning to accept, love, and celebrate who and where we are.

And perhaps everything will change when we stop trying to pursue what we don’t really need to, when we understand that the things we think we need to search for are right around us, are within us, are us.

Perhaps we don’t need to run after happiness like it’s wandered away but understand that when we change our mindset, we can see it more clearly.

Maybe everything starts with accepting what’s around us for what it is—even in the imperfection—and finding the beauty where we never thought we would.

Because truthfully, happiness is right here.

Happiness is in the moments of failure because they are reminders that you can only go up. Happiness is in the kisses that have grown mundane because that means we’ve been loved so deeply for so long. Happiness is in the shadows because to make darkness, there must be light.

Happiness is in each breath—a reminder that we are here, alive. And that’s something to celebrate.

Happiness is here.
Open your eyes.

Featured Image Credit: Yanapi Senaud