My latest posts (that have had way too long intervals) have been about seeking happiness. And guess what? Good news: I've found it again! It was missing for two years, but now we are happily together, and I sincerely hope I will never lose it again. If I do, please direct me back to this post.
Tonight, I will tell you how I found it. Step by step.
1) I tried to follow my instructions I made up in this blog post. It kind of helped, vitamins certainly made me feel better and seeing people gave me a reason to live. I guess that was a reasonable start.
2) I cried. Well yeah, in the end it was hard to keep trying. I felt crappiest ever. I really wanted to give up. I stopped eating vegetables. I stopped eating. I only got up to go to things I could not avoid, like work. I didn't see any friends. I went to school but stopped talking because no one could hear me. I felt invisible.
3) I stopped crying. One day I just noticed that the sun was shining outside. The winter was over and the spring had arrived. And somehow I had missed it! I had re-found the world of youtube. I had found inspiring people who filmed youtube videos. They were talking about reasons to keep trying.
4) I did some time travelling. I found my mp3-player that I haven't really updated since I was 17. There are a couple of newer songs from my life 3 years ago, but nothing recent. And I listened to it for 3 hours when I was on a bus. And while I was sitting there listening to music I realised several things.
First one was that listening to music is useful when your head is so tired of doing all that thinking that you just don't know how to process it anymore. Then you can just turn on music and the lyrics will do all the thinking for you! All you have to do is to either agree or disagree with the singer.
The second thing I realised was that music somehow saves all the big emotions. Listening to the music reminded me of all the emotions I felt when I was listening to those songs back in the day. And man, teenagers have a lot of feelings. But it was good. I have learned, I have experienced things. And over all I was really happy when I was a teenager. It reminded me of how to be happy. It's like those songs had the exact information I needed to be happy again.
Maija Vilkkumaa told me that I shouldn't be sad, and that one needs to make the effort to be happy. Daniel Powter told me that it's ok to have a bad day sometimes. The Bad Shepherds told me that it's silly to sit here eyes filling up with lonely tears when there is a whole wide world out there. Caedmon's Call told me that it's important to try even if what I was going to do could be the mistake of my life. And obviously, Katy Perry told me that she kissed a girl and liked it.
Maija Vilkkumaa sings:
Tuija oli vain seitsemän
mut tiesi jo sen
että vaivaa täytyy nähdä
jos tahtoo olla onnellinen
jos itse ei hanki itselleen ystävää
sitä yksin jää
mut tiesi jo sen
että vaivaa täytyy nähdä
jos tahtoo olla onnellinen
jos itse ei hanki itselleen ystävää
sitä yksin jää
in English:
Tuija was only seven
But already knew
that you need to make an effort
if you want to be happy
if you don't acquire a friend for yourself
you will be alone
Mostly, the music reminded me that being happy after all was up to me. I would suffer the most by being unhappy. I had to be who I wanted to be.
5) I woke up happy. I suddenly remember what being happy was like. I hadn't been so sincerely happy for 2 years. The fact that I didn't have anything extra messing up with my body, and that the things that were really making me anxious and unhappy were finally over probably helped the most, but in addition I had found things to be inspired by and things to look forward to.
If everyone would have 3 things in their life that inspire them, I don't see a reason why they wouldn't be happy. Things to do, people to love, hobbies, inspiring thoughts, future plans, stuff to look forward to, good food are all things that help us to make the most out of our life. It's almost summer, and this summer could be the best summer of our life!
Okay, to be honest I am not entirely sure why I lost my happiness in the first place, but I think the reason was a combination of medical reasons, loneliness, stress and just a miss-balance of bad times and good times. But I hope I won't lose it again. Inspiration and lovely people have always been the key to happiness. I just had forgotten about it. Probably the best thing in the world thing is to be inspired by good food in a company of lovely people.
