H A P P I N E S S

 What is happiness? It's an emotion. It's a feeling. It's a state of bliss.

It's an endless pursuit which everyone goes through. It is the ultimate end, and everything else is just a means to get to it. Happiness is motivation, a reason to do something. A reason to do everything, in fact. What is life without happiness? Nothing. Happiness is life.

Happiness gives meaning to everything in this world. What would this world and this existence mean without happiness? It would be dark, and morbid. Terrifying and cruel. It would be death. Happiness is life. Happiness is also death. Because from all creation comes destruction, and from all destruction comes creation. It's a cycle. So happiness is even death.

Happiness is spending a Friday evening with your family, laughing away to glory while you play Truth or Dare. It is the friendly competition with the mother and father on one side and the sisters on the other. It is the heart to heart talks you have around the dinner table. It is the surreal joy in your heart when you realize you have people you would die for. It is a cycle. It is happiness.

Happiness is seeing your best friend in college and realizing that you have a sister in spirit on whom you can completely rely on, and be fully vulnerable in front of. Happiness is the lazy afternoons spent in Pizza Hut, binging away to glory, and the comfortable silences at home that needed no defining. The television shows you marathon from two different homes and obsess over later on.

Happiness is staying up all night reading a book despite droopy eyes and a tired body. It is the thrill you get when the heroine breaks free of the shackles holding her back, and saves herself. It is the stolen moments between classes when you sneak in your favourite book, shutting yourself from the rest of the world. It is something you cannot explain. It is happiness.

Happiness is seeing the photos of your baby niece who lives so far away. Happiness is the dull ache you get in your heart for being able to love someone so much without even having seen them in person. It is the way your heart opens when you hear her voice over the phone. Happiness. Happiness. Happiness.

Happiness is getting a good grade, and realizing your hard work paid off. It is the self worth that comes along with it, and the celebrations that follow. People might call you a nerd, but they just haven't experienced that happiness yet. Beautiful, brightly glowing happiness.

Happiness is seeing your favourite fictional character be happy for a change. It is seeing her with the love of her life, just being ordinary people without the weight of world on them. It is a feeling that most might not understand. It is love in it's own way, because it is h a p p i n e s s.

Happiness is the hug your mother gives you despite hating hugs, just because she knows how much it means to you. It's all the afternoons spent on gossipping about evil relatives and stupid customs. It is about the scandalous jokes made that no other mother and daughter would make. Knowing that she considers you to be someone who understands her, and someone she can talk to? Happiness. Happiness is knowing your mother would love you no matter what, and that feeling means more to you that you can comprehend. IT IS HAPPINESS.

Happiness is the unflinching loyalty and belief your father has in you. You know you can go and slaughter an entire nation and he'd love you all the same. Happiness is the comfort you get in knowing that you had an amazing, humble and wonderful father to grow up with, and see him treat your mother will all the love in the world. Happiness is knowing that this makes you know exactly what you are worth and you don't have to settle for any less.

Happiness is the games you have played with your sister. Even Flappy Bird. Especially Flappy Bird. It is feeling proud of her and rooting for her to win the game, even when you failed long ago. It is knowing that she is going to grow up to become an amazing woman, and change the world, and she doesn't even know it yet. Happiness is knowing you have a friend in her, and always will. True happiness.

Happiness is talking to your favourite cousin sister after ages, and still feel the same. It is remembering the one true companion you had since your birth. Happiness is all the times the family reunions became bearable because of her presence. It is all the cute actors you ogled over together, and the pranks you played on each other. Good memories. All of it, is happiness.

Happiness is writing something that fills you with warmth, a fuzzy feeling you can't even pen down. Happiness is the pride you feel on finishing it, and realizing it is actually good. It is your mother reading it and saying she loves it, and that she had a lump in her throat. It is her saying your late grandfather would have felt the same. It is self worth. It is happiness.

Happiness is all those wonderful mornings, evenings, afternoons and nights spent by yourself in your room, doing whatever you want, feeling peaceful and content. Happiness is going to Landmark by yourself deciding not to spend a money, and walking out with so many books that your old bag might tear. Happiness is typing away on your laptop, not knowing where exactly you're going. It is knowing how comfortable you are in your own skin, in your own company. Happiness is the blissful feeling of solitude.

And most of all, happiness is finishing this and realizing you have so much to live for. It is the happy tears that roll down your cheeks because you have people who love you so much, and people you love so much. Happiness is the calm that has now spread over you because you aren't as alone or lost as you thought. You have hope, you have people. You have happiness.

Happiness.