The Book of Happiness: Why?

I got it wrong. I got it all wrong. Unfortunately, I think most of us do.

Back in September, I grabbed a large one-subject notebook and a sharpie and so proudly named it, “My First $100,000 Book.” In it, I keep all my notes from prominent figures and entrepreneurs I had the pleasure to meet, notes for businesses and side hustles, and whatever else I saw fitting to help me reach that goal that I so generously set for September 2018. For a student graduating in December of 2017, that was highly ambitious, but that was the point. Even if I miss the goal, chasing it would give me the proper foundation to actually achieve it the next year. It forced me to detail and plan how many different revenues I needed to build to generate that income and reach success…in my book.

Now nothing is fundamentally wrong with "My First $100,000 Book." It was a great idea, and better to execute on (although I’ll be nowhere close to that goal). What is wrong, is that I made "My First $100,000 Book" before I ever contemplated "My Book of Happiness." In September, I was struggling just as much mentally and emotionally as I ever had been. It was much more of a struggle than money was for me at the time. But somehow, detailing how to get more money found importance over happiness.

Even though the average person is not the best at planning, I believe this "Book of Happiness" idea will seem foreign to many people still for one reason: We believe happiness is something that is supposed to be natural. Wrong!

Happiness is a choice.

Now before anyone mentions mental illnesses, I believe this is especially true for us. Yes, us. I will say my struggles with bipolar depression, anxiety, and for a time PTS left me below the dirt for so long, in so many days. Until I found happiness in not being able to find happiness. Let us remember the definition of happiness.

Happiness: good fortune, pleasure, contentment, joy.

The happiness I speak of, that I call a choice, is contentment. In my depressed phases, I can’t feel joy. One day that will forever speak to this, I was so happy that I could feel the joy bubbling inside me. I’d just met some great entrepreneurs in Raleigh at a meetup that showed too much faith in an idea I was looking to start. I was hype, I was ready, I felt the good fortune that things were aligning for me. But when I reached my room, which at the time was the main trigger for my PTS, it all became buried. The bubbling joy, I could feel ever so slightly somewhere deep down in myself, and think to myself I still believed I was ecstatic, but emotionally there was nothing there. I was trapped away from it.

So what did I do? I became angered. I became angered that this inability to control my emotions was getting worse, I became angered because I felt like I couldn’t enjoy life, I became angered at who I was.

What do I do in similar situations now? Ride the wave. I understand I won’t get to enjoy every moment like I may want, but I don’t attack myself for it. I actually enjoy my depressed and manic phases now. Now, I have go to activities for both. I first had to reach contentment, so that I could now find joy in the fact that I write some of my best poems from that state. So yes, happiness is a choice.

Okay, but what does that mean? That means that it should be encouraged that we sit down, plan, and detail how we will attack and reach happiness. Everybody who truly wants happiness should keep a book that will help them find their best happy self.

So yes, I decided to put my $100,000 book on hold when I recently decided to start and focus on my "Book of Happiness." Besides, one is clearly more important. When the time is right, I will start again, but for now,

"My First Book of Happiness": Due March 2019

Next Week: "The Book of Happiness: How?"

Be Happy!

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