Why I Stopped Chasing Happiness

What have we all been trained to believe throughout our lives?  That we should be chasing happiness. As long as we're happy, it's all good.  There are so many sayings about happiness and look how a lot of them are self-pleasing and temporary. 

If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. 

Do whatever makes you happy.

I just want to be happy.

At the end of the day, all that matters is if you’re happy.

Life is too short not to be happy.

As long as you’re happy, that’s what counts.  

You deserve to be happy.

You owe it to yourself to be happy.

If it doesn’t make you happy anymore, walk away. 

Go where you’re happy.

Being happy is the most important thing.

I can’t be in something if I’m not happy.

You have to choose what makes you happy.

Everyone deserves to be happy.

I’ll finally be happy when ___ happens.

I used to be happy. I just want to get back to that.

Just be happy — don’t overthink it.

I left because I wasn’t happy.

I stayed because I thought I’d be happy again.

If they really cared, they’d make me happy.

I shouldn’t have to give up what makes me happy.

I’m doing me — I deserve to be happy.

Don't worry be happy.

I fell into the "happy trap" myself.  I even helped my daughter with a project about happiness.  She wrote a piece and created a visual piece describing happiness and protecting your happiness. She went on to say the way you protect your happiness is by not allowing others to hold your key to happiness; they could lose the key or misplace it, they won't take care of it like you would, so it's up to you to hold your own key and not give it away to others. You are responsible for your own key to happiness.  She made a cute jar that had iridescent glitter on the outside about three/fourths of the way up and kept the top clear. Inside, you could see a beautiful golden key that hung from the bottom part of the lid to make it appear like it was semi-suspended, timeless. That beautiful key represented her control over her own happiness, and it was well protected. This was an inspiration and reflection of what I would always say to her and what I would teach her about happiness. I tried many different ways like this to help her with her self-doubts and self-esteem issues by teaching her that it's within herself to take charge of her own happiness and not to depend on others for it. 

It's not that what I taught her was wrong because she definitely doesn't need to depend on others for her "cheery disposition" or to be a self-esteem booster, because it leads to a what goes up must come down type of situation. And my intentions were in the right place, but after learning the difference between happiness and joy, I wish I had known sooner to teach her about joy as well as happiness. You see, happiness is fleeting and worldly.  It comes and goes depending on circumstances, the epitome of something being conditional, similar to conditional love versus unconditional. Joy is concrete and comes from the Lord.  We can persevere and appear to be happy no matter our circumstances when we have that perpetual joy that we receive by knowing and having a relationship with Him.  

It's a game-changer when we decide to keep our eyes on the eternal prize, our forever home.  Get ourselves out of the worldly thoughts of what's pleasing for us in the here and now. Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to say that it's ok to be happy, and I'll still write about it and share the "happy" memes, but that's not the complete picture and what we should be chasing after. If I had the choice to be happy or joyful, I'd choose to be joyful, knowing what I know now. 

John 15:11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

This is an AI representation of my daughter's project piece that she made, not the actual one.