I want to find love so I can be happy. I want money so I can live a happy life. I want to be skinny, so I can feel happy.

What is it with happiness that makes people dedicate their whole lives to it?

The best definition I have heard of happiness yet is from the movie “Hector and The Search for Happiness.” Happiness is defined by a specific blissful feeling you experience when you are young. Not only do you feel the happiness in that moment, but you can also feel it whenever you reminisce upon it. Hector is a psychiatrist who travels the world with the question of how to obtain happiness. In one lecture he attends, the speaker describes a moment in time that brings you to a happy state.

To me, that moment was a summer day, running barefoot on the hot cement, two doors down to the house of my best friend, secret crush and neighbor, Ethan. I would pretend the sidewalk was lava—which one could argue it was, due to its blistering temperatures— running as fast as I could, hopping from grass to cement, in efforts to cool my tingling feet. I remember hearing my heart pounding in my ears and feeling the wind blow all my curls off my face. The buildup was the start to my euphoric state, but it wasn’t until I would sneak through his garage, put a finger to my lips, signaling his mom to not give me away, and run into his room and jump on him. I always successfully terrified him, after which we would both giggle and have fudgesicles downstairs, as we planned what mischief was in store for us that day.

I was not worrying about how many calories were in the fudgesicle, or if Ethan was busy and would be annoyed by my goofy behavior. Instead, I was letting everything go, which ultimately enabled me to experience true happiness. Even thinking of the memory is able to bring me back to a happy state. It was a moment in time that I did not even know I was experiencing happiness. That moment mimicked many moments like that in my childhood, so I thought that was just life. Until I grew up.

We grow up and everyone around us, from our parents, teachers, and people in the media, tells us that we need to do all of these things in order to have a happy life: We must go to school and maybe even learn things we are not passionate about because they make money, and you need money to support the family you need to have. We also must do charitable acts, not because of the goodness of our hearts, but because that is what will make you look like a better person, which means more opportunities, which means more happiness! Are you starting to see the pattern?

In the end, we lock our passions, dreams, desires, in a box hidden deep in the crevices of our mind and follow the path; the path that is preached to us each day, with an aim to reach the end goal: This supposed “happiness.” How can we be happy if we are slaves, slaves to the pursuit of happiness?

Instead of focusing on the illusion of "the path to happiness," we should let go, as we once did as children. Pursuing our passions and enjoying life should be our goal and happiness will come at some point during that journey. You will never be able to achieve happiness if it is your only goal.

Happiness will come and go along the way. But over the past week I have learned that there is something more powerful than happiness that people seem to forget about: Joy.

The topic of happiness seemed to segue into joy, as I interviewed a man who escaped Colombia dressed as a nun, or when I had a delightful conversation with an Uber driver named Williard from the South Side, and even in my philosophy class during a meditation, guided by an iPhone app. Each unique individual talked about how happiness is a temporary state of being, whereas joy is infinite.

So, if you want to live a life where you experience moments of happiness, you must stop searching and start living. Eventually those moments will become your being and you will be a joyful person, with happiness as the core of you. I suggest you think about your summer day. What made you experience pure happiness? Whatever that was—your grandma’s fudge, or laying on a blanket and watching the stars— do it again. Do this same thing tomorrow—with a different memory—and maybe, just maybe, you will become a happier person. Tune out all of what you thought you knew about being happy and follow your heart to joy.