It happens unexpectedly. We might do everything we're supposed to do: graduate high school, go to college, get a job, maybe find someone we like enough to date, maybe not. On the outside we're becoming responsible adults. We do our own taxes now, we pay rent and utilities, we start our own phone plans. We get a pet or three to see how we deal with having to take care of a life outside of our own. Everything is going the way it should be according to everything society has told us.

So maybe it happens in the middle of doing dishes, or going to the bank, or spending a mild mannered night out with friends. Maybe that's the time that it hits us that we realize we are unhappy.

Why? Everything is going so well. A good job, a great college career, everything is perfectly in place, maybe some of it isn't but for the most part everything on the outside is good. It's a fulfilling life, an easy life, so why do we find ourselves glaring into our phones for hours on end or sitting on Netflix watching the same show over and over again to keep our brains numb to what's really wrong?

It takes a lot to admit that even though it's a good life, it's not a happy one. For me, that moment came during a hiatus I had taken from work. Maybe I need to work to be happy, or maybe the business of a forty hour work week on top of full time credit hours kept me distracted. I'm still not sure of the answer.

I had tried preoccupying myself with hobbies, the internet, whatever came to mind, but I realized I could not simply be inside my own head without feeling some sense of discontent. It didn't feel right. I liked my life, I truly did, but something inside of me wasn't satisfied.

The answer should be easy: it's the wrong major, the wrong town, a bad relationship, but it was none of those things. So I began to do what any student is drilled to do: I began to study.

It started with a bullet journal. If you don't know what those are, they're basically little journals of everything. It's a calendar, a to-do list, an agenda, an activity tracker, really a good journal should reflect who you are on a daily basis. I went out and bought a journal I liked, got new pens, and went at it. I thought that if I gave myself a to-do list and motivation to meet different goals that i would find more satisfaction in my life. The most important part of this journal was my emotional tracker.

I made a grid for every day of the month, and a list of emotions I may feel that day. These emotions ranged from sad, happy, irritated, depressed, but also had different concepts like jealous, hopeful, and motivated. I believed that if I saw in a physical format how I felt every day, it would bring some clarity into what made me unhappy, what didn't, and maybe what needed to change.

I last twelve days. In those twelve days my emotions were all over the place. I was happy quite a bit, but I was mostly annoyed, irritated, anxious, and depressed. It was devastating to look at my emotional life on paper, and to see that for twelve days, I never felt hopeful, and I never felt peaceful. I hadn't realized how disconnected I had become with the person I used to know as myself.

I spent the next several days in a depression, unable to rally. I spent most of my time drowning myself out on Netflix. I didn't leave the house. I was miserable. I resented everyone around me. How dare they talk about a bad day they had? Didn't they know they were supposed to suffer quietly, as I was?

This went on until a specific Youtube binge, those ones where you start on a music video but end up watching a vlogger from Ireland explaining why his boyfriend dumped him. I ended up on a vlogger's channel where she was explaining her sexuality and her spirituality, which led to another Youtuber's spirituality, which led me to Ted Talks about happiness. Happiness at home, happiness in the work place, pathways to being happy, what makes us happy, and what happiness ultimately is.

I became obsessed with the idea of studying about happiness. I watched Happy and Hector and the Search for Happiness on Netflix. I listened to Youtube videos on happiness by people who practiced Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I watched Neil Degrasse Tyson talk about the universe. I bought an autobiography of a boy who was jailed at 19, and found his happiness by reading the book "The Tao of Pooh" in the jail's library. I was eating the study of happiness alive.

That first night flipped me. I fell onto a natural high for about three weeks. I went back to my job. I was smiling more, sleeping better, and my relationships rallied. I took more time away from my phone, the internet, and everyone just to be with myself, and I found that I could enjoy it again.

It's been a few months, and the high has faded away, but my want to be happy has not. I haven't stopped studying. I'm a generally happier person than I was before, but that doesn't mean I've come across a great emotional Nirvana. I still get angry, I still get irritated and annoyed, but I'm in more control of my emotions. I'm more aware of them as well, and through that I'm more aware of my actions.

My pursuit to understand and redefine my own happiness hasn't stopped, and why should it? Happiness, regardless of who anyone is, is the ultimate goal. We want to have lives that fulfill us and make us feel satisfied, contented, and happy. I think everyone should study the idea of happiness, as human beings and as our own selves. We need to come to understand where our happiness lies, what happiness means to each and every one of us, and how we can achieve those goals. I believe that everyone of every walk of life can find that happiness, and that we should take a more direct approach to studying ourselves and this concept of happiness, because through our own, we can bring joy to others. Instead of seeing our emotions through abstract concepts, I believe that through careful thought and study, we can find the answers we're looking for, instead of wandering alone in the dark.