Remember when you finished that project you procrastinated until the last night to do or write up an entire essay that was assigned for three days but you used 1 hour to do instead? What did you feel when you finally did the things that you were responsible for? That feeling was more than just relief; it was true happiness, happiness not bonded by consequences.

Before the 21st century and even the late 20th-century society wasn't as complex, people defined happiness and joy in very simple ways: a loving family with a few friends that did things that they enjoyed doing as well. Back in the early 20th century America people weren't really concerned about accomplishments or worried about their futures; society had it all planned out for them. Men had to go to work and women stayed at home while children went to school. This was the norm, the "American Dream," and nothing else.

But now everything's different, the roles of men and women have changed, society has been more complex than ever, competition grew as the number of people coming into this world vastly outnumbers the number of people leaving it. We now have to frantically plan out our future and be scared that we might get behind and lose to the competition. We now think about what we truly live for and the meaning of life while being self-reflective. We now have to worry if the next assignment we get is going to screw us over or that there are places we haven't tried hard enough on. We're encouraged to pursue our dreams, but every step along the way seems to be discouraging us from going forth rather than moving onward. We're constantly under the impression to look normal and be normal and maybe even think normal, whatever "normal" means. We're all living in a society that expects us to become great but at the same time abide by the societal standards.

We live in a place where so much is expected of us, from our family, from friends, from the world, from our dreams, and now even from ourselves because we're so self-conscious about our abilities compared to other people. Each of these expectations and responsibilities is like chains that hold us down and the once carefree child that always wanted to play now worry about whether they have enough friends or wonder if there's an assignment due for class. We allow the carefree spirit to be chained and use the rest of our lives to pull off each chain individually, some chains made of smaller chains and some chains that will never go away. As time moves along its course, these chains change its properties. When we were kids and teenagers, these chains were parents and schoolwork. When we are college students, these chains become social relationships, internships, and self-independence. When we're adults, these chains become the society. Some of us seek to relieve ourselves of these chains temporarily through the use of drugs and alcohol which relieves the chains temporarily but then strand us and people around you into tighter, heavier chains. So under all these chains where could we find happiness?

I mentioned at the beginning of the article briefly how the feeling of finishing a project connects to finding happiness. Happiness, as I define it, is the difference we feel with one less chain bounding us, it's when we forget about the pain of the chains bounding us and appreciate the feeling of relief. The more chains we have on us, the happier we feel. However it's not just ourselves that can loosen these chains, others can also too. When you know, there's a friend or family that's there to help you or a listening friend that's willing to lend a listening ear anytime, the strength of those chains loosens. You can love a person so much that you are willing to bear any chains they have onto yourself. You could also suffer from loving someone when they leave you, letting the chains that they loosened up for you pull on you again.

We are all Sisyphus, constantly pulling and losing chains off of us to let us breath tomorrow's air. Unlike like, however, we could control the amount of chains we get, the amount we need to loosen or pull off, we get to decide how much pressure we put on ourselves and how much happiness we could get. If we allow ourselves to be so chained up that we couldn't feel happiness anymore because the difference between one more chain and one less chain is insignificant, we let ourselves suffocate. If we allow ourselves to be carefree of the chains and throw the chains onto someone else, others will suffer directly from your actions.

The chains come in many ways, but happiness does not. We may be weighted down by the chains of society, but we wake up every day knowing that between those chains is something called happiness.