Happiness is an inside job...!!

Often in life, we pursue everything with a single, overarching motive: to be happy. We choose careers that feel good on the inside, believing they align with our true selves. Yet, if we ever choose a path for other reasons, like money, we eventually find ourselves frustrated—not with the life we’ve created, but with the life we couldn’t.

We marry someone, hoping they will lead us to a happiness we’ve struggled to find on our own. We move across the globe, change cities, all in search of a feeling of wholeness, a state of peace where even a simple movie night brings joy. We yearn to create moments of happiness, with dreams of sharing them with our parents, our children, and maybe even our grandchildren one day.

But life goes on, and we keep searching for something so vital, looking in places we’ve always expected to find it. When disappointment comes, we shift our focus, searching in unfamiliar places, thinking that maybe, just maybe, strangers and strange lands won’t disappoint us as much if we fail to find happiness again. We forget that we didn’t set out on this journey to find disappointment; we were seeking something of utmost importance—happiness.

As we move through life, we learn. Life waits patiently to teach us valuable lessons at certain turns, lessons we might not have appreciated years ago. We had to become this particular version of ourselves to understand these lessons, to experience life and shape ourselves accordingly so that the road ahead holds more meaning. Having lived 25 years in this beautiful world, I now understand that happiness is an inside job. Life tried to teach me this when I was 22, but it just didn’t make sense at the time. I wanted to make my own mistakes, to experience the adventures that lay ahead, to feel the sting of disappointment when I chose the wrong path, and then spend nights in guilt wondering why I hadn’t learned this lesson sooner. Would life have been different if I had? Perhaps, but now I know it wouldn’t have been any better than what I have now.

I no longer see happiness as living in a beautifully aesthetic apartment in downtown Toronto or even New York. I find joy in living in an average house, where even the roof feels fragile in a storm, nestled in the heart of a beautiful valley. My list of material desires has grown short, but the list of moments etched in my heart is never-ending. I don’t look forward to fancy dinners in expensive restaurants or wearing outfits I dare not repeat. Instead, I feel serene going to a coffee shop every morning, meeting wonderful people who now I consider friends not even worrying about how my hair looks.

All our lives, we assume that happiness lies in that long-awaited trip to Paris, believing it will strike when we successfully complete our itinerary. But true happiness might just come in the form of a stranger you bump into on your last night before flying home, someone whose eyes reflect a maturity earned from countless life experiences, silently reminding you that "Happiness is an inside job."

You save and save, sacrificing countless desires to buy that watch you’ve dreamed of. Finally, the day arrives. You wear your favourite shirt, spray the special perfume you only use on rare occasions, and buy the watch. For days, you admire it, certain you were right in wanting it so badly. But then, one afternoon, while wearing your special watch, you stop at a pizza shop. Ahead of you in line is a man with a tattered jacket and shoes barely holding together. He runs into an old friend, and they laugh together about their high school days. You reflect on the last time you laughed that hard, even after buying "the watch."

The places we live, the things we own, the destinations we visit—they bring us joy, but let’s not mistake them for happiness. We keep working hard, believing that completing our tasks and to-do lists will finally bring happiness, only to feel disheartened when it doesn’t.

Understanding this early on can make life more content. You’ll begin to treasure the small, deep conversations, a good cup of tea, a peaceful walk in the park, a cuddle with your pet. A gentle tap on the shoulder from a parent will mean so much more, and you’ll worry less about your child’s grades.

After searching everywhere for happiness, we eventually realize:

"Happiness is an inside job."

Harleen Kaur Brar