Looking Out For Happiness?

​Most of the times we do the mistake of thinking we have to look out for happiness.

​Though we actually just have to look in.
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#happiness #lifegoals #selfdevelopment #tips #soulsearching #secretkey #positivethinking 

When we think we are not happy because we miss something, because we are still waiting for success, for wealth, or for the perfect soulmate... we think our happiness depends on goals we haven’t reached yet. We feel incomplete.
“When I’ll finally have this or that, then I’ll be truly happy.”
Thinking this way, we perceive happiness as a jackpot we can hardly win, because these goals often appear unreachable. And so we feel frustrated.
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With this idea, we forget that happiness is actually a feeling, a state of mind.
It’s not something to catch out there, in the future, or something to receive, but it comes from deep inside our mind, it's our own conception, and it's a feeling to experience in the present.
It is here, deep inside each one of us.
​But we can’t see it.

​It’s hidden by a bunch of misplaced goals and fake targets that we endlessly run after, pressured by our society standards and common thoughts.
Like “I’d love to become successful, but I’m not there yet. So I’m incomplete.”
“I’d love to find true love, but so far my relationships failed and I’m alone. I’m incomplete.”
“I’d love to have children, but haven’t met my soulmate yet. I’m incomplete.”
 
We just need to stop, take a step back, and get to re-discover the real happiness: our own happiness.
It’s here. We just have to open our eyes and see what makes us happy, for real, in each present moment.
 
Happiness is not something we must 'gain' at some point in our lives, and keep for the rest of our days; but it's the sum of a multitude of fulfilling moments we should appreciate daily.
 
You have to know your own happiness. Become aware of when and why you feel it, and enjoy it!
Instead of thinking about long-term success goals, re-target your attention on your deepest feelings of joy and pleasure in everything you do each day. Allow yourself to sense them, and let your mind feel fulfilled, your soul completed by the experience of these positive and rewarding moments.

​I feel truly happy when I look out at my garden, and see the flowers in the trees.
I just stop thinking, and enjoy the beauty of Life.
Whatever problems in your life you think you have, flowers keep blooming, and a delicate breeze makes them dance at your sight.
If you just look, and let yourself be amazed by nature.
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​I feel truly happy when I seat outside and stare at the sky, watching the clouds move slowly, their shapes transforming… the colours changing as the sun hides.
If you think the weather is getting cloudy and that sucks, your thoughts. I look and enjoy the show, the wonderful show of the sky being endlessly unique each second above our heads. And mastering the most infinite colour palette any artist could dream of.
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​I feel truly happy when I ride my motorbike without any goal and see the rice fields surrounding me. I let myself be filled with the wonder of Mother Nature's power, growing billions and billions of grass blades on earth at this second.
Life works far beyond your meaningless little frustrations of the day.
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​I feel truly happy when I stop to eat alone in a new café on the street. I could feel gloomy, because it’s Sunday and I’m having lunch alone. Nope. I enjoy a date with myself! I stay on the terrasse and forget the time, nose up in the trees, staring at the wind making their branches dance and their leaves whistle gently… I am free.
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I feel truly happy when they play my favorite old songs and I smile alone. I don’t need to have anybody by my side to tell “Hey! I love this song!”… I simply enjoy it for myself! It does make me smile already. I already own that moment.
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​I feel truly happy when it starts raining, and everyone starts to look annoyed. They agitate to take their raincoats out of motorbikes, to park and hide somewhere, get covered to not get soaked on the road… While they complain, I enjoy watching a little frog jumping in a small puddle beside me, I laugh when I see a dog suddenly jump off from his nap by receiving the splash of a car passing by. I pick small details… I catch instants that people missed.

I feel truly happy when I catch a glimpse on little things that people don’t seem to see. It’s like finding a rare gem. I find beauty where no one looks...
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​I feel truly happy to find beauty and interest in the most negligible details.
Sometimes I just seat at a café by the street and can watch people pass by endlessly on their motorbikes. I love looking at their faces. I watch the show of how various they look, I play reading their state of mind, imagining their personal journey, where they come from, what they are doing today…
The beauty of Indonesian faces still amazes me. I'm living in this country for years now, but I’m still marvelled by watching them. The many variations of their warm skin tones, the shape of their eyes, their faces showing mixed origins from so many islands, their smile, intense dark eyes… still bewitch me like if I was admiring exoticism for the first time. Each of their faces reminds me of art, that we used to look after in museums, as Europeans, and of the chance I have to admire it for real every day. How incredible and infinitely rich is the variety of human faces throughout the globe! When people were not able to travel the world, they would press at museums to watch an exotic painting from Gauguin, an exotic asian mask, and feel fascinated by this lucky glimpse on a new world. When I watch their faces now, I see the art of Nature, live.
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I’m truly happy when I look at this Indonesian grandma walking on the opposite side of the street, wrapped in her traditional sarong, with her straw conical hat and grey hair. I deeply enjoy the fun fact that I’ve been studying the art of batik prints and the types of Asian folklores through museums, through my civilisations books since a child, and in textile classes in Fashion school, as beautiful wonders of another world, while for this woman it’s just normal life. She’s born with this, lived her whole life in it. This is her personal story, her family traditions. She has no idea of how amazing she looks through my eyes… And how lucky I feel to admire her now.

I’ve read somewhere that the key to happiness is the capacity to remain marvelled like a child.
Being able to see the world through child eyes. Being filled with wonder day by day. Look at the world around you like you've never seen it before, this is how you keep your soul alive.
 
When we become jaded about the beauty of life, we’re diverted to look at fake targets. And we fail to see beauty and wonders where they are.
 
The key to happiness is to open your eyes again on what’s here for you.
Instead of focusing on what you lack, what you don’t have, what you wish you’d have… Re-focus on what’s here under your eyes, what’s here around you.
Re-learn to appreciate it.
 
See that you can just experience happiness and feel complete here and now.
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​Happiness lies within yourself. You decide it, you create it.
If you can just look within yourself, know what makes you happy now.
And allow yourself to be happy with the littlest you have, the littlest you see.
Because the marvel of it is just purely infinite, if you can see.

Nothing or nobody will make you happy! Only your own self can do that. Because happiness is your own conception.

You might think I did nothing today, by reading this...
But I did: I felt happy! My day counted. Much more than if I was running after vain goals.
 
I hear too many people finding excuses why they’re not happy: “I don’t have time, I’m too busy, can't change my life”…
Wrong: You own the time. Time is a concept in your mind. Every second of the day is yours.
Take the time to be happy. You can do it already.

​I could have felt unhappy today, because I was alone and it was rainy… But it's actually the thought of it, that would have made me unhappy! Though I just had to ‘feel’ happy. Being attentive and receptive to feel my happiness.

If you’re too busy waiting for extraordinary things, then you miss the present time to be happy!
If you can’t be happy from your own self, then why would extraordinary things or persons make you happier?...
I felt happy today, and I needed to own nothing for it, to do nothing exceptional for it.
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