What is Happiness? (for me)

Happiness is a positive emotion you feel when you experience an internal delight or satisfaction. It is the pleasant sensation your mind experiences. This is what separates it from pleasure or being content. Pleasure is sometimes caused by something external. Take sex for example. It can cause pleasure but that doesn’t mean you are happy. You could be raped and suffer a mental breakdown but still feel physical pleasure. Being content is a sensation the mind experiences but it is not necessarily pleasant. You could be sold as a slave in Kenya and be content with your lifestyle as a servant of rich oppressors but dead on the inside, no emotion or sometimes only negative emotions.

When you don’t feel any negative emotion like sadness, anger or fear, chances are you’re happy. This is because happiness is probably the default emotion of people. You could probably go beyond happiness but the default and most common thing that is experienced is happiness. At some point, people become happy. It might not be the first emotion after something tragic but you’ll get there because if you don’t, it either means you’ve died or you’ve reached the end of the downward spiral in your life and have chosen to remain in the empty void of darkness. No one can stay happy for 24 hours and at the same time, if you don’t become happy within 24 hours, then you’re leading a sad life. Happiness is the default emotion because even after you experience those negative emotions, you can still rise above them. I doubt anyone wants those dark and negative emotions to plague them most of the time so they chose to find a way to feel happy. I also doubt anyone looks for ways to bring themselves down so happiness is the default emotion.

With this being said, I would say that anything makes me happy. But, if I were to pick the top 3 things that would make me happy, I would say schadenfreude, reading manga or watching anime, and eating food.