Happiness.
What does that word mean to you?
Is it a person? A place? One prevalent moment of laughter?
For me, happiness isn't a memory, nor is it a goal to aim for. It's a way of life, a mindset, a means of living. Happiness is not a job or a destination, it shouldn't be something that's on your bucket list. You should be doing the things on your bucket list whilst being happy.
For a while now, I've been debating what makes me happy. Here's what I came up with (in no particular order):
- seeing a sunrise
- 3am deep chats with close friends
- Bo Burnham
- the nostalgia of my memory box
- Skins
- when you wake up and think it's time to get up but really it's 2am and you have 4 more hours to sleep
- the feel of a hot water bottle thawing your body on a cold day
- Rachel Joy Scott
- Bee Movie memes
- being vegan
- Zero Day
- hugs
- baking
- complex characters
- Twenty One Pilot's cover of Cancer by My Chemical Romance
- that vine where a lil Spanish girl is laughing then her chewing gum falls out and she mutters 'oh, mi chicle' oh boy that gets me every time
- how my family almost literally used to be the family from Outnumbered
- Harry Potter (!!!)
- sleeping on friends on the bus to/from college
- Barack Obama singing
- my GCSE Music class (hi Mr Lawrenson I miss you)
- people who have a wide vocabulary and utilise it in daily life
- 13 Reasons Why
- Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time by Panic! At The Disco
- avocados
- when it's a stranger's birthday at college and everyone in the canteen claps
- meditation
- people pointing out your little idiosyncrasies
- The Death Cure
- finding cheap vinyl
- online shopping
- putting up the Christmas tree
- group chats
- The Jonas Brothers (I know, I'm embarrassed)
- spending time with God
- when you're told nice things that people have said behind your back (I call it kind bitching)
- NoContextLouis on twitter oh boy
- Louis Theroux in general tbf
- passive-aggressive vegan memes
- reading other people's poetry/novels/writings
- Emma Watson
- films which make exceptional use of colour
- singing
- seeing strangers show unprovoked compassion
- my faith
- PositivePlant on twitter
- that Michael McIntyre sketch about different name spellings
- when you've finished watching a live show and the cast are bowing and for no reason you suddenly flood with tears (no?? just me?? oh...)
- when the whole family's down and you're annoyed at the noise then you realise how lucky you are despite it
- Joe Walker as Umbridge
- hearing a cat purr
- seeing someone you love smile
- when you reread a poem you wrote a while ago and still? like it???
- Stellar Kart
- hearing one of your common phrases slip into a friend's vocabulary
- someone's face lighting up when talking about their passion
And so much more. These are a few of the things that bring happiness to my life, and I didn't even mention the largest contributors; my friends and their undying banter, my close family and our improbable harmony, simple life itself.
As this is the final Wednesday (and the final day!) of November, this is the final post of I Am..., so if you have any requests or suggestions for what the Wednesday series should be for December, let me know!
Also, let me know what makes you happy, and what happiness means to you.
Thank you for reading.
