Often times we lose track of life and the meaning of it because we’re so caught up with being busy. I also find that happiness is just a label for an emotion, but as humans we need to make sense of things all the time, to qualify situations and feelings and things.
Gretchen Rubin’s “Happiness Project” shared the 3 states of happiness. 1. Getting excited planning for something you really love. 2. Living the moment itself (ironically we don’t do this enough as in this age of social media, people are more focused on documenting it for #3) 3. Recollecting the moment as a memory
I read this many times over and found it empowering. With the internet, there’s all this plagurism and bogus crediting quotes to Buddha, the Pope etc, the source of this is unclear, went viral as the Pope’s words, but apparently taken from a Portuguese poem “Palco de vida” (Stages of life), by renowned poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935).
I thought about how boring life would be without the drama and all the bad characters in the plot. There would be no plot! And because of the polarity of Happiness and Sadness, we get to experience either.
“You may have defects, be anxious and sometimes be irritated, but do not forget that your life is the greatest enterprise in the world. Only you can prevent it from going into decadence. There are many that need you, admire you and love you.
I would like to remind you that being happy is not having a sky without storms, or roads without accidents, or work without fatigue, or relationships without disappointments.
Being happy is finding strength in forgiveness, hope in one’s battles, security at the stage of fear, love in disagreements.
Being happy is not only to treasure the smile, but that you also reflect on the sadness. 
It is not just commemorating the event, but also learning lessons in failures.
It is not just having joy with the applause, but also having joy in anonymity.
Being happy is to recognize that it is worthwhile to live, despite all the challenges, misunderstandings and times of crises.
Being happy is not inevitable fate, but a victory for those who can travel towards it with your own being.
Being happy is to stop being a victim of problems but become an actor in history itself.
It is not only to cross the deserts outside of ourselves, but still more, to be able to find an oasis in the recesses of our soul.
It is to thank God every morning for the miracle of life.
Being happy is not being afraid of one’s feelings. It is to know how to talk about ourselves. It is to bear with courage when hearing a “no”.
It is to have the security to receive criticism, even if it is unfair.
It is to kiss the children, pamper the parents, have poetic moments with friends, even if they have hurt us.
Being happy means allowing the free, happy and simple child inside each of us to live; having the maturity to say, “I was wrong”; having the audacity to say, “forgive me”.
It is to have sensitivity in expressing, “I need you”; to have the ability of saying, “I love you.”
So that your life becomes a garden full of opportunities for being happy…
In your spring-time, may you become a lover of joy. In your winter, may you become a friend of wisdom.
And when you go wrong along the way, you start all over again. Thus you will be more passionate about life.
And you will find that happiness is not about having a perfect life but about using tears to water tolerance, losses to refine patience, failures to carve serenity, pain to lapidate pleasure, obstacles to open the windows of intelligence.
