I just realized that this is the third time the prompt list has used happy or happiness as a topic. I’m starting to think the creator of this challenge really wants to bring out the participants’ happy memories.
This is actually a tricky topic. Not that I’m not happy, but I don’t want you to oversimplify my definition of happiness. Because, for me, if you see how playful or light my blogs are lately, you’ll think that I can write it all because I have privileges, that I have an easy life with minimal risks, but a full love tank and happiness tank. No. For instance, my bills are currently more stable than my income.
But if I can be honest, I think happiness is more of a combination of the joy we have everyday through the things we’re thankful for because we earned them, even though we may not deserve them.
So, don’t see me as a sunshine (although there’s this one kid calls me “Auntie Happy”), because I’m probably, like, the reverse of it. You won’t see me as an approachable person, but if you talk to me, I hope you know that no matter how clueless I currently am about life, deep down I’m happy.
I think I’ve been using happiness as my life engine, to do what I have to do, to pursue what I wanna do in life, and to glorify The One who granted me this life stage.
This is my personal reflection of happiness. TBH, I know this won’t always be applicable to everyone, but I hope you can take some ideas here to keep in your mind.
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Just a bit of backstory. In One Piece, the final island that Luffy and his teammates, the Mugiwara Pirates, have to reach is ‘Laugh Tale’, to obtain that “One Piece”. The former Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, went there with his teammates, and they were… laughing. Yeah, I know, very surprising.
But what really caught me is how he wished to live in the same era as Joyboy (a legendary figure from the Void Century) 800 years ago and how they realized they were too early, because the world “wasn’t ready” at the time they found One Piece. Spoiler alert, until today, no one knows what “ready” means.
They didn’t cry, didn’t get angry, didn’t get disappointed, but they laughed. They laughed so hard that they cried. I cried too, because after obsessing over One Piece for 15 years, it felt like a little accomplishment to see THE Gol D. Roger on THAT legendary island.
Roger has never been my favorite figure, I’m not Luffy, though. But, when I realized that he laughed after finding One Piece despite not being able to do anything about it, I started to learn that happiness can be built within ourselves. Contextually, Roger laughed because it was (theoretically) Joyboy’s power surrounding the Laugh Tale, but personally, I see the One Piece he found as something that we collect in life, one piece at a time.
You get that click listening to a song for the first time and instantly fall in love with it, that’s one piece.
You watch a movie sooo meaningful that it makes you want to live again, that’s one piece.
You eat a verrry delicious meal as if you’d happily have it for the rest of your life, that’s one piece.
You can breathe, walk, eat, sleep, wake up without any tools to help you do them, that’s one piece.
You meet your best friends and have a great time together, that’s one piece.
You feel nervous about something because you care about it so much, that’s one piece.
You have people whose existence makes a future event more exciting, that’s one piece.
You find an old memory and realize that you were really there, that’s one piece.
You realize that you’re the one who can give yourself a reason to stay attached to life, to stay curious about what happens next, that’s one piece.
And if you collect all the good memories you have in life, slowly filling your happiness tank along the way, and give thanks, that’s hopefully how you find your own definition of happiness. When it’s all gathered, you’ll laugh too, because you just found your One Piece.
I didn’t build it for you, no one will build it for you, you did it yourself.
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I’m not the happiest person ever, I still want things I don’t have yet, I still cry every once in a while (or maybe more often than a while). If I can be honest, I think I’m Sadness from Inside Out (2015), although sometimes I just wanna hit her for always wanting to cry, but I often cry too, maybe that’s why sometimes I just hate myself. But this blog is where I write about happiness. What is going on? Anyway…
Any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me… to me.
p.s.: 그래서 윤기씨 marry me look at you now, 행복은 존재하죠, 그치? 💜
