Happiness

(DTO) What is happiness? Where can it be found? How can one attain it?... These are questions that perhaps most people have asked themselves at least once in their lives. A quick search on Google for the phrase "what is happiness" yields thousands of results with a vast array of concepts regarding this state of being.

Clearly, happiness is something everyone desires and everyone deserves.
That’s undeniable. In reality, there’s no universal standard for happiness. It depends on one’s emotions, inner peace, and sense of contentment with life as it is.

For some, after long exhausting hours at the construction site, the company, or the office, happiness is simply being able to hurry home, even if it’s just a modest little house with nothing expensive inside, because they know a wife is carefully preparing dinner, and a young child is waiting by the door for their father to return, eager for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Happiness is right there, in that humble home.

What’s truly sad is finishing a workday, standing up from your desk, and realizing you have no direction, not knowing where to go or why you are working so hard and for whom.

For many people, happiness is as simple as having a place to go back to, someone to worry about, someone to keep in mind, so that after a day of labor, they know exactly whom they are striving for and caring for.

Happiness isn’t just about responsibility toward yourself. It is also about responsibility toward someone else.

For some, happiness is incredibly simple and easy to find. It’s right in front of them, within reach, woven into everyday life.

For instance, no matter how tired you are after a long day, the moment you remember your child is waiting to be picked up after extra classes, you force yourself up, hop on the motorbike, and head out through the rain. On weekends, when you finally have time to rest, your child softly asks to be taken out to play.

So you try, because later, when they’re grown, you won’t get the chance to pick them up from school or take them out for a weekend stroll anymore. Happiness grows from these small, ordinary moments, as long as you’re willing to put in a little effort.

Happiness is an emotional state, an equilibrium between positive and negative feelings, and a sense of satisfaction with life. And within each person, happiness is never fixed.

As children, being scolded or punished by our parents felt humiliating and often drove us to negative thoughts.

Yet somewhere later in life, as we sit lost in memory, we sometimes wish we could once again feel that sting of a bamboo rod on our backs or hear our mother’s nagging like before.

Clearly, happiness shifts with time, age, environment, work, and financial circumstances. It is never static.

Ultimately, happiness is something we create. We feel it through our spirit, our emotions, and our personal sense of fulfillment with the life we have.
Happiness cannot be bought, traded, or borrowed. It is not a distant destination that requires a long journey to reach. It is a path we cultivate ourselves.

We must plant the seeds of our own happiness so that it can sprout, blossom, and bear fruit. When the heart blooms, happiness flows.

By NGUYEN CHUONG
Translated by ANH DUC