For at least the past six years, I've thought that the secret to happiness was being pretty and skinny. I don't remember exactly when I started thinking that, but it's been a long time. This mindset led to low self-esteem which led to negative thought patterns which led to a borderline eating disorder which led to therapy and counseling to correct those behaviors. I lost weight and was skinnier during this time, and yet somehow I was even less happy than I had been before. How did that make sense, when magazines and social media and seemingly the whole world proclaimed that happiness came when you lost weight and became that perfect, "ideal" woman?
The answer is that it doesn't make sense, and it won't ever make sense because claiming that happiness comes from losing weight is simply not true. There is no formula that determines how happy you are based upon how much you weigh. There is not a correlation between these two things!
"You do not find the happy life, you make it." -Thomas S. Monson
This has been running through my head for several weeks now. I've been wondering why now is the time I feel happiest and most complete. Why do I feel happier now than I ever did when I was supposedly following the formulas for happiness presented by society? I'm busier now than I ever have been, and yet I feel more content with my life than ever. I've realized a few things as I've thought about this paradox.
1. You determine your happiness.
There is nothing anyone else can do to make you be really and truly happy. Sure they can bring you flowers or put a smile on your face, but lasting happiness, the kind that makes you feel content with everything in life, that has to come from you. You choose to wake up and be happy. You choose to spend time doing things that make you happy. Some things I've focused on are expressing more gratitude, "savoring" each moment and exercising more! As I've improved in each area, I've found more and more happiness with who I am and what I'm doing.
2. You cannot find happiness.
We all know those cheesy quotes, the ones that say "happiness is not a destination, it's the journey." We smile at those and sort of brush them off, but they are so true. You cannot find happiness! It is not a physical, tangible thing that you can go on a quest to find. You make it. You make the decision to be happy and then you do the things in life that make you happy and these choices you're making enable you to become happy! I thought by losing weight I would find the happiness that was eluding me. What I didn't realize was that happiness was right there, accessible to me no matter what.
It took me far too long to realize this, and my hope is that I can help others learn that their happiness doesn't depend on reaching a certain weight or making a certain amount of money or dating a certain person. I realize that not everyone's way of making happiness is the same. I also don't claim to have the master solution to happiness for everyone, and I know my way of creating happiness will likely change as I mature and grow older. It took me months of therapy and emotional pain to learn how to make myself happy, but when it's all said and done I don't think I'd change that. Because I went through that, I know what it's like to endlessly search for happiness in ways you think will help, only to realize that you're more miserable than you were before. I know what it's like to feel more than just sad, and since I know that, I know what it's like to feel truly happy.
You cannot find the happy life. You must make it!
