Inspired by The Day of Happiness last 20 March 2014 and their suggestion to be happier, I have been jotting down on my happiness notebook my answers to the following:
a. Things I enjoyed
b. Things that went well
c. Things I am grateful for
At the end of the day, before going to bed, I traverse down memory lane and replay the happenings of the day. It has been more than a month since I participated in it.
According to their website, www.dayofhappiness.net, recent study shows that people who write down their answers tend to feel happier as days go by. Notice that the word I used is happier and not happy, because as human as it may seem, we always long for something more than what we already have. Intangible things like happiness is definitely one of them.
So I took up the challenge. I went to a novelty shop and bought the cutest notebook with different inside designs, its goal being to stand as my inspiration to pen down the events of my day (who does not get inspired writing on cute papers, anyway?). So the first day was translated to written words, and the second day, and the third, and the weeks that followed. When I went on a trip to Kuala Lumpur, despite my aching body and uncontrollable dozing eyes, I continued my quest to write happiness. The joy travelled from my brain, to my heart, down to my fingers, only to go back again through my fingers, then parks in my heart. There it found its sanctuary.
What is good about doing this, you may ask? Sure, sometimes I dreaded the work of penning them down because it steals a few minutes from my sleeping time. But once I hold that pen and open my notebook, my gray matter gears up and recollects those happy moments, those rainbow-coated moments, and my heart enlarges for joy it cannot contain. To relive is to live. To repeat is to feel like it is the first time. Like that time when I put my ipod on repeat almost the whole day for Crack the Shutters song by Snow Patrol. I let my body sway to it after the third or fourth time. It has conquered my soul.
Happiness is a choice. A choice to see it. Days after, I began to see the joyful, pure happiness that does happen everyday, in every minute of our lives. In every pulsating minute of my life. I started to recognise it, I took a mental picture of it, and I stored it in the database of my heart of hearts. They get to come out at night before bedtime.
There was a suggested experiment in one of the books I was reading. It said to visualize a dollar with all its attributes (weight, color, the feel when holding it), and soon on the same day, the coin will keep popping up out of nowhere. It is literally everywhere we lay our eyes on. Has it always been there but had not been noticed, or they just start to appear because of the power of the mind? No one knows. Imagine doing this experiment, substituting the dollar with happiness. Happiness will keep appearing like that dollar(s) on that sidewalk you just took.
Once we start to take note, we will notice how blessed we are too. It has a domino effect, this journalling of happiness. It is causal to our current standing. And all it takes is a pen, a pretty notebook, and an open heart that sees.
"It is only through the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye." - The Little Prince.
