the pursuit of (happyness)

What is happiness?

What makes us happy?

What makes you happy?

10 years ago, my naive teenage self wanted to become a successful director so badly. I thought to myself that I would be truly happy once my dream was fulfilled. I thought to myself that once I become successful, I will find my true love & we will live happily ever after. But life taught me differently when I learned about depression. Throughout my teenage years, I’ve been a very difficult & unhappy person. I’ve always felt unfulfilled in life. Sometimes I would ask myself ‘Where is my happiness?‘. And of course, I could never find the answer when fiercely looking for it.

Yesterday, I saw some house sparrows collecting grass in a small alley near my place. Maybe their happiness was just being able to find nice little pieces of grass to build their cozy little nests. And this just reminded me of the time when I was a kid. We were still living in our old house built when my grandma was 12. One day, my mom put a bowl of water next to the spigot in our garden. And then we sat by the window, next to my mom’s sewing machine, & just waited for the sparrows to come. After about 2 minutes of waiting, around 10 sweet little sparrows would come to drink water from the bowl. Some of them even washed themselves by using their tiny little beak to splash a bit of water onto their tiny little wings.

Maybe another thing that makes sparrows happy is finding free bowls of water in some random gardens in the middle of summer.

Today, when sitting in my room, I just happened to notice a house lizard trying to drink a droplet of water that I’ve spilled on the floor earlier. And then, when I was eating my delicious mandarin orange, I thought to myself ‘Hey maybe that thirsty little lizard wants some orange too’. I decided to share a tiny piece of orange with that tiny lizard. I think he (or she) quite enjoyed it.

Maybe happiness to a house lizard is when its human accidentally (or purposely) drops some good food on the floor.

To me, happiness is when I ate candy with my kid friend, Pancake, & she would tell me to wait before we could chew it. Happiness is when I can hug Pookie, my dog friend who passed away a few months ago, & look into her eyes to see how much she loved me. Happiness is when I was taking a lazy nap in my parents’ house in Vietnam & my dogs just ran into my room, jumped on me & licked my face. My happiness is seeing super-exciting dogs wiggling their butts. I’m happy when I find someone willing to listen to my silly thoughts & understand my silly feelings.

But you know what. My happiness doesn’t often last so long. Sometimes I waited for something (or someone) to come & make me feel less unhappy. Sometimes I felt so stuck & suffocated by life. Sometimes I wanted to end it all so I wouldn’t have to feel this way any longer. But would I find my happiness eventually?

Can money buy happiness?

It can make our lives easier & less stressful so we have more time to find happiness. Without money, our lives would be so miserable. Unless you’re living somewhere so far away.

I don’t have money to go that far & I still want to become a successful filmmaker. So, for now, whenever I feel stuck & unhappy with my life, I will move. I will move bit by bit so that one day, I will be far from my current unhappiness. Maybe I will be able to see more of others’ happiness.

Maybe one day, I will get closer to my happyness.