“How many of us, I wonder, can recall a childhood moment when we experienced happiness as a state of being? That single moment of untarnished joy. That moment when everything in our world, inside and out, was all right. Everything was all right. But now we’ve become a colony of adults and everything is all wrong, all the time. It’s as if we’re on a quest to get it back, and yet, the more we focus on our own personal happiness, the more it eludes us. In fact, it’s only when we are otherwise engaged, you know, focused, absorbed, inspired, communicating, discovering, learning, dancing, for heaven’s sake, that we experience happiness as a by-product, a side-effect.

“We should concern ourselves not so much with the pursuit of happiness, but with the happiness of pursuit.”

Hector and the Search For Happiness (2014)

Making comparisons can spoil your happiness

Happiness often comes when least expected

Many people only see happiness in their future

Many people think happiness comes from having more power or more money

Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story

Happiness is a long walk in beautiful, unfamiliar mountains

It’s a mistake to think that happiness is the goal

Happiness is being with the people you love; unhappiness is being separated from the people you love

Happiness is knowing that your family lacks for nothing

Happiness is doing a job you love

Happiness is having a home and a garden of your own

It’s harder to be happy in a country run by bad people

Happiness is feeling useful to others

Happiness is to be loved for exactly who you are (People are kinder to a child who smiles)

Happiness comes when you feel truly alive

Happiness is knowing how to celebrate

Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love

Happiness is not attaching too much importance to what other people think

The sun and the sea make everybody happy

Happiness is a certain way of seeing things

Rivalry poisons happiness

Women care more than men about making others happy

“Rock bottom is everything out of focus. It’s a failure of vision, a failure to see the world as it is, to see the good in what it is, and only to wonder why the hell things look the way they do and not some other way.” 

“You taught me how to be loved.” -Hello I Must Be Going