Happiness

What is happiness? In the film "The Pursuit of Happiness", Chris Gardner talked to his 4 years old son with very simple words explaining what is happiness: "You want it? Go and get it!" It is exactly the pursuit of happiness. You have a dream in heart, then you manage it by strategies. So happiness composes two parts: a dream and strategies. It sounds simple but very complicated in reality.

To have a dream, you need a free heart, a heart that is clear about what you really want. It should be something that YOU really want, not that anyone else wants you to do, or the outer pressure pushes you to do. It's somehow very difficult to figure out in the real world though, with all the living pressures --- grades, university name, job, money, house... Instead of pursuit of happiness, many people switch to the pursuit of money, houses, better university name, better job titles. The truth is, all of those, if without a free heart, won't make a person really happy. Many people are stressed with work, tired with one goal after another, pushed by bosses and family duties. They are not happy because they don't understand a free heart is the source of happiness. Life for them is in the form of pieces of goals, that has to be achieved one after another, and never ends. Their heart is imprisoned by those pieces, and never free. They don't know what they really want. They don't have a dream. People always complain about their lives, as if they are the most unlucky ones in the world. The truth is, happiness lies not in what you live with, but what you live for.

Knowing what you really want, realizing the dream is a matter of strategies, that don't necessarily involve the heart. Compared to a free heart, the strategies are something easier to handle. Just follow logical steps, keep working on it and that's it. Only when rooted in the dream, those strategies are meaningful and enjoyable. Stress becomes wonderful stress, intermediate goals become glorious steps towards the palace of the dream. What a wonderful life.

Life is short. There is no time to waste on the detour. To have a happy life, one should focus on what he/she really wants, and keep working on it with a free heart and brilliant strategies.