Photo by Nicholas Kusuma on Unsplash

Are you living someone's version of happiness? There're a lot of people try to guide us on happiness by plotting their storyline into our life. Many of them don't even live that way, they just feel that you should live the way they think is correct. If you succeed through their way, they will claim themselves as your mentor. If you fail hard, they will have a bunch of excuses("you didn't do this and that...", "you're not good enough...", .etc) or even disappear in your life. They are like an author, try to write another person story because they can't live that way. Whether the story is a success or not, it won't impact them cause they don't take responsibility for our life.

Are you comforting yourselves by comparing with someone that has less? We tend to get happiness by comparing with those doing worse than us and this is wrong!! Years back, I did that as well, when I'm not doing well, I compare my result with someone that did worse than me. It sounds like when we get 50 marks in an examination, we will say there're people get less than 50 marks in the examination and avoid saying how many people get more than that. We will try to group with those getting less than 50 marks because we will feel great as we get the highest marks among the group. It's time to get rid of this habit if we are doing it.

Are you trying to buy trendy thing just to compare with friends? We feel disappointment or upset when surrounding are equipped with trendy items, hence we have the urge to get one of it so that we won't feel left out when gather around, even if we can't afford it. Here the thing, trendy items have new model or version frequently, the life span is short. We will gonna spend a lot of money just to keep up with the trend. There will be some thought or speech like "iPhone 12 coming up, I think the floor love my current phone, they belong together."  Have you ever think of the feeling of the floor when you keep pushing your "ex-lover" to the floor... 

We should try to find the real happiness from the deep of our heart, not the happiness that defines by anyone else. All of us are unique, there won't be a one-for-all solution for happiness. We have to figure out the way to happiness on our own. It's not an easy path but it's worth taking. Before that, we have to identify and stay away from fake happiness first. Below are 5 ways that can help to stay away from happiness.

1.    Take a break from social media

There are so many posts on social media that try to show off their new "toys", share their achievement, seeking attention, .etc. Unconsciously we might fall into the trap of comparing, eventually we might try to go for the same thing. Is that the happiness we want? Try take a break from social media and see the difference.

2.   Meditation

When we have too many thoughts going in our little min, it will cloud our decision making. Meditation helps to clear our mind, it will be much easier to identify the happiness we really want when we have a clear mindset.

3.   Try new hobbies

It's easy to overthink when we are too free. Find a hobby that you really enjoy and have passion for, whether it's cooking, fishing, reading, .etc. You can spend time in new hobby instead of overthinking.

4.   Focus on ourselves

Focus on our own path, don't compare what others have or achieve. It will never come to an end if we keep comparing with other people, we never know what they have gone through to achieve those things. So, don't compare, stick to your own path and make the best out of ourselves.

5.   Learn to appreciate

Instead of comparing with others and cover by jealousy, we should learn to appreciate the little thing in our life. We easily get upset because we're not satisfied with what we have, by learning to appreciate what we have, it's more likely for us to find happiness.