Happiness in my own practice

What is happiness to you? Vocabulary.com defines happiness as, "feeling or showing pleasure or contentment" but it's something not so easily understood. The definition of happiness varies from person to person and can even change forms as we grow older but the feeling can remain the same. Happiness is enduring and understanding, enduring pain and hardships, not letting any outside force bring you down, and understanding the pain that the hardship brings is what happiness means to me but we all have a different view on what happiness actually is since we all strive to reach the “Island” or “Holyland” we believe in.

Stoicism was first founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium around c. 300 B.C.E. as a Hellenistic philosophy. Stoicism plays a part in my happiness because it's about enduring pain and hardship, especially since these are two of the biggest things that can negatively affect one’s happiness. Being able to endure is a sign of happiness to me because the ability to find and keep a reason to move forward is important to one’s happiness. Death is something we all face and worry about, but stoics always keep it in their mind and don't dismiss it but they instead use it to be more productive since this can at times hinder us from moving forward which in turn helps us understand.

Understanding that some things are out of your control and can't be stopped helps us focus on actual problems that are within our power to change which in turn lightens the emotional burden. Knowing that a situation is out of your control helps you understand that not everything can be fixed by your power and this can help you separate problems and define each of them giving you the ability to think more clearly. According to Apa.org, the top student stressors are family issues (31%), academic performance (28%), and relationship problems (27%). The same site states 61% of college students feel overwhelmed or feel some form of anxiety while studying; as shown they not only deal with academic but personal problems as well and this is where defining problems can help.

Currently, I am using what I've practiced to pursue my happiness and have endured to keep it; since I still haven't reached my ideal state I continue to try and understand my problems to inch closer to my goal. As we all do I've as I’ve had financial problems and doubts but they are not always permanent my way of happiness has helped me find ways to keep trying to reach my idea. I've always been able to endure, be it physical or emotional pain, but I still struggle to separate and fully understand problems that come up. I continue to try and fix things that have already passed not knowing that there was nothing I could do. To help my anxiety I have applied box breathing and do this whenever I feel overwhelmed to clear my mind since it is said meditation prepares one for even their own death.

In summary, I've welcomed and fought off pain which leads me to think of what happiness means to me. The philosophy of stoicism is something people do without realizing, it means to endure and when we fight for our happiness we form a stronger mind. Understanding is something we naturally pursue since we know that the more we understand something the more control we have over it. Since this is a virtue we all seek, I ask whoever is reading to think about what happiness means to them and what you can do to look for and keep it for as long as we can.