Throughout the years I‘ve often wondered about happiness and where it comes from. Why some people seem to be much happier than others and what it is that brings forth the happiness in those individuals.

We‘ve all read about the famous people, the stars, that seem to lose their way and fall from the skies either by means of alcohol and illegal drugs or by their own hands. Those are often the people we look up to, the people we want to be when we grow up. In our common and mundane minds, they all must be so happy - although all signs point to something completely different.

These known individuals have respect from the world, they‘re loved by people that don‘t even know them, they have money, they have power and the possibility to do almost whatever their hearts desire, but still it is not enough - and they are not happy. So what is it one needs to become happy if it isn‘t fame, money and power?

I believe happiness comes from a certain mindset, and by that I don‘t mean eating vegetables and doing yoga every day. I believe the way you look at things is the key to opening up the box of happiness from within, because from what I‘ve seen, that‘s where it comes from. Happiness isn‘t something you can buy. It doesn‘t come from feeling superior to others and having other people fall at your feet. I believe it comes from being content in your own skin, from feeling deserving and from appreciating yourself.

I would consider myself a relatively happy person and although life has not always been kind, I still seem to manage to stay that way. To find the small glimmers of light that flame the ever burning happiness candle within. Every cloud has a silver lining is a phrase I do my best to live by and when you come to think of it, that phrase truly has a point. No matter how bad the situation is, there‘s always something positive to be found.

Let‘s say you were to miss your bus on the way to a very important meeting. That would most likely truly grind your gears, especially if you thought that it could have some bad effect on your life. The first thing I see in a situation like this is the lesson; be on time. This is a very valid lesson and although you’re standing there by the side of the road blaming the bus driver, the person that cut you off on the sidewalk and didn‘t let you pass by or your alarm clock, it still all boils down to the fact that you could have set in motion a different set of events, you could have made that bus had you just done things a little differently.

Most of us are not up for a lesson in such a situation but it‘s still extremely important. Let‘s say this had happened to you and you decided to learn from it; you set the alarm 10 minutes earlier or go earlier to bed so you‘d actually wake up when it rang or you buy a better alarm clock that better suits you. With that attitude as a weapon the result would be that you hardly miss anything ever again. It might even lead to you not missing an extremely important event, like your own wedding. So as you stand on that sidewalk angry as can be, think about what you have learned and all the different ways it‘s going to benefit your future. Because everything will benefit in some way or another.

The second thing I see is the immediate gain. In this case you would have a few extra minutes to go over the notes for the meeting. If you live in a city like me where the busses go by their own schedule and there‘s no way of knowing when they come and when not, everybody will understand if you‘re a few minutes too late because of a bus that either didn‘t show up or came much later than expected. When it all boils down to it, we‘re all just people and most of us have been in the same situation ourselves so if it doesn‘t happen every day, we‘re going to understand and it‘s going to be alright.

The third thing I think about is what could have happened if I had caught the bus and this part revolves around a bit of storytelling. I imagine that the other bus had been so full of people that I would have stressed trying to find a place to stand or that the bus driver was probably much worse than the one I have now and so on and so forth. I just imagine that it was a stroke of luck that I got this bus and not the one before and I even go as far as thinking that it was meant to be, a link in a series of extremely fortunate events.

This is one of the things I do to maintain a sense of happiness at all times, and over the next few months, I‘d like to tell you about more methods you can use to accomplish the same. Happiness is fun, it‘s fulfilling, it‘s something bright and warm and sweet. It‘s something that‘s yours and yours alone and no one can ever take away from you if you just adjust your mindset towards maintaining it. I truly encourage you to walk this path and see where it leads, and if there‘s one thing I‘m sure about then it‘s that no matter your situation, no matter how depressed you feel or how lost, no matter what happened and no matter what is happening, there‘s a way to make your situation feel much better and the key to your own happiness is always going to be YOU.