happiness is in the mind of the beholder

There's a period of time I recall for a particular reason. A bunch of years ago, there was a period when I had a rather simple and monotonous routine.

Every day, I’d work on my school projects, then, when I was done for the day, I’d work out, shower, cook myself something, eat it, then journal until bedtime.

During that time, I was living alone, met no acquaintances, and had virtually no social interaction. Every now and then, I’d visit my school to turn in a project, but even then, my social interactions would be pretty minimal.

This went on for a couple of months. Not great, right? Actually, it was. I remember thinking to myself, "I’m really happy right now". I enjoyed what I was doing, be it school work, working out, or especially those journaling sessions. They made me think about deeper things and put me in a state of appreciation. I felt perfectly content during that period of time.

Now, my point is not that you should isolate yourself and live a boring life to find happiness. This may not work for you (nor for me in the long run), and isolation is not recommendable overall.

The idea I want to convey is that, no matter how the circumstances look from the outside, all that matters is how we experience things. Our subjective experiences are our reality. So, what is actually important is not what our life looks like from the outside, but how it feels from the inside. Counterintuitively enough, those two are far from being always aligned. It’s important to remember this and to care for our experiencing self.

So, go for those things that may actually work for your subjective self, keeping this in mind: happiness is in the mind of the beholder.