I've spent a lot of time chasing happiness in places I have no business looking. I've searched so much that I use to perceive happiness as some abstraction, something meant for other people, something that I didn't have the road map for. You know those people, the ones whose lives seem so effortlessly balanced, the ones who seem to have it all together without batting an eyelash? These people don't exist.The idea of them exists, but only in my head. The truth about our lives is that a lot of us equate money with happiness, even still though that only gives us comfort. You can hope against hope to derive happiness from comfort, but that's not where it springs from. Somehow, we've got to stop believing that the elusive idea of satisfaction from the material will somehow translates to happiness, because it never will.

So we strive to meet that criteria of "what will satisfy us" and we're still dismayed. What I know about life so far is that I wasn't created to live this effortless and blissful life. I suspect that you aren't meant for that, either. Life is dirty, it's messy, and it's not always fun. So what I've learned, instead of trying to steal away some fleeting idea of what I think will make me happy, I've tried to practice contribution, to see what I can give to life rather than take away. I have never been more happy than when I am helping somebody else, for whatever reason it may be, big or small. I could sit here and tell you that I like to help others out of the goodness of my heart with no thought of something in return, but I always get something in return, even if I'm not looking for it. I get satisfaction.

Every other distraction in life seems to fall to the wayside when I stop focusing so much on this silly little blueprint for my life that I've constructed in my mind, and when I start seeing where I can be of service to others. Happiness is not the purpose for my stay here on Earth, I was intended for something so much greater than that. The selfishness in believing that my happiness comes first is the reason why I believe I've been so discontent with the state of things in my past. There will always be something that needs fixing, something that I am less than pleased with, those issues will never cease to exist and I will exhaust myself trying to find the answers to the problems that don't even have any significant bearing on my life in the long-run, anyway.

When I can take a moment to empathize with someone else, I forget about all of the petty things plaguing me in my daily life, if even for just a moment. It seems counter-intuitive, to leave behind the trite little obstacles blocking the path to my idea of "happiness," but it's the only thing to work so far. When I can slow down enough to remember what my purpose for living is, to help others and trust that it's the right thing to do, I gain a little bit of peace. A pain shared is a pain lessened, and I can see the world for what it truly is. We're all trying to get by the best we know how, but we're not very good at it if we try to do it alone.