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Happiness

I walk around on dark days wishing things were different.  Not just wanting to sit back and be content.  The sky describes my mood well on these days- gray all over with spots of lighter and darker as the wind sways the trees but it is puzzlingly not cold out.

I wonder, did the founding fathers encourage the pursuit of happiness because they knew at some point we would reach the end and find you?

"Why can't I just be happy?" I wonder. But happiness was never promised to me.
Sometimes I think if only ____ and I could grasp it.
But happiness is, in fact, very weak because the more it is trusted in and sought after, the more of a phantom it really becomes and the farther away it flees.
I somewhat know how happiness is not found but I have a much less clear picture of how it is found (or I might not be sitting here writing this and instead be basking in it).
What I do know about how it is found is that if you let it go and do not waste your life chasing after it, once you are chasing after the things you were meant to chase it will be there.  Because then joy will be present.
Happiness and joy are two different things but as joy is something that can exist independent of circumstances, it can overflow into happiness.  Joy can change the way people see circumstances and then, happiness can be found even in bad circumstances.  

Happiness is not meant to be held and worshiped.  It is actually virtually impossible to do so because the very existence of it cannot take place if it's the end goal.  My unclear picture of how it is found is that like the wind, we can feel it but we cannot hold, capture or fabricate it in the way that it blows past the trees and rustles the leaves.  And if you put yourself in a place where it can run into you, only there will you find it.
Running into the wind trying to feel it isn't the same as it brushing past you.  You will never know whether it would have run into you on its own or not.
In the same way, I don't want to wish for happiness.  I would rather have wisdom to know the things I should really be chasing and then, if happiness presents itself, so be it.

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