Today is the International Day of Happiness!!! A day to smile, a day to be happy. Yet, another ‘world institutionalized event‘.
I am not going to dwell on the reasons the world needs such a Day, nor I am advocating a day of joyful and happy faces. 🙂 I will not tell you either how to feel today.
Therefore, I will let the UN tell you all about the significance of March 20th, the International Day of Happiness.
The #AngryBirdsMovie is partnering with the @UN for #InternationalDayOfHappiness https://t.co/niCw2FyDwu
— Angry Birds (@AngryBirds) March 18, 2016
However, I do believe in the importance of being truly happy. Your happiness lives inside of you. It’s your choice to find your inner-happiness and be happy on your own terms.
Here’s what I wrote last January on the subject.
Rediscover Happiness
“Now and then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy” -Guillaume Apollinaire (from Goodreads)
What is happiness? Am I happy? Are we happy? Most of all, why writing a blog about a topic as well-established as happiness? Doesn’t everyone of us have a pretty good idea of what happiness is or what can make them happy?
Does happiness lie in the nature of things? How bumpy is the road to inner-happiness?
It is precisely because happiness has been so well taught that I wonder how I can be sure that what I feel when I think I am happy is really happiness.
A journey of self-rediscovery
The purpose of this blog is to take us on a journey of self-rediscovery. A journey where one will decide on the meaning of inner-happiness and the importance of being happy.
Of course, we all heard about the importance of being happy. This topic has been celebrated through time and has been imposed as one goal to achieve. It seems to me that between all the noise around being happy we have lost the true meaning of happiness. Or, have we ever known what happiness means to us!
In today’s society, the state of being happy is well-perceived. As a result, consciously or unconsciously we tend to project a given image of happiness. This reminds me of a colleague I worked with last year. In my mind, I refer to her as “Ms. Smiley face”. She always wears her most joyous face, even in serious and difficult situation.
She’s been taught that showing sadness, anger, or discouragement is a sign of unprofessionalism whereas a happy face means good leadership, strong people skills, a sense of resilience in tough times and all these great skills.
This is what I call an institutionalized feeling, which is in direct conflict with individuality. How can you really feel what you are showing if it has been taught and instilled into your mind?
