The Happiness I Almost Missed

I used to think happiness was a finish line.

Growing up, I would hear adults say things like “Once I get this job…” or “After I lose ten pounds…” or *“When the kids are older…” and then—then—they’d be happy.

So I learned to do the same.

At age sixteen, I believed happiness would come when I got into my dream college. When I got the acceptance letter, I was happy—for about a day. Then the weight of loans and fears and imposter syndrome settled in.

Okay, maybe happiness was graduation. Then it was getting a job. Then it was making more money, dating the right person, getting a better apartment, traveling more. And so it went. I always needed just one more thing.

Like many people in their twenties, I didn’t realize I was outsourcing my joy to a version of myself that didn’t exist yet. A “better” me. A “more successful” me. A me who had her act together, who never cried in the bathroom at work, who didn’t have quiet anxiety attacks in the Target parking lot.

I was chasing a moving target. And that target had a cruel sense of humor.

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The Breakdown

It was a rainy Tuesday when I had a breakdown in a Panera Bread. I was 27. My phone buzzed with an email that should’ve made me happy: a job offer from a well-known startup. Better pay. Better title. Remote work. Everything I thought I wanted.

I read the email. My hands shook.

Then I started crying into my bread bowl.

The woman at the next table gave me a napkin and a look that said “Do you want to talk?” I didn’t. I just nodded and said thank you.

The truth was, I didn’t know why I was crying. I just knew that I felt…nothing. Empty. Like I was checking off boxes that didn’t belong to me. Like I had spent years building a life I didn’t actually want, just because it looked impressive on LinkedIn.

That night, I didn’t take the job.

Instead, I opened a blank Google Doc and typed:

“What would your life look like if it was truly your own?”

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The Unraveling

For the next few weeks, I unraveled. Not in the tragic, chaotic way movies portray, but in a quiet, uncomfortable way. I journaled. I cried. I deleted Instagram. I avoided calls from people who expected a version of me I no longer wanted to be.

I started small: buying groceries without a list, just walking the aisles and seeing what felt right. I began taking my morning coffee on the porch, no phone, just birdsong. I spent one afternoon lying on my floor staring at the ceiling, thinking about how long it had been since I’d done something just because it made me happy.

And slowly, I started noticing things.

Like how peaceful I felt walking in the early morning before the world woke up. How making art—bad art—filled me with a kind of joy I hadn’t felt in years. How laughter with my sister over FaceTime made everything else seem less urgent.

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The Shift

I didn’t change my life in one dramatic swoop. There was no “Eat, Pray, Love” journey, no quitting everything to move to Bali. I kept my job. I paid my bills. But I also gave myself permission to stop trying so hard to become someone I wasn’t.

And that’s when happiness began to sneak in.

Not in big, flashy moments. But in whispers.

In the way my dog curled up behind my knees when I slept. In the scent of lavender from the candle on my nightstand. In the new friendship I built with someone who didn’t care what I did for a living, only how I made them feel.

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The Truth About Happiness

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Happiness isn’t something you earn. It’s something you notice.

It doesn’t live in promotions, or praise, or perfect pictures on social media. It lives in the space between things. In the pauses. In the choices you make when no one’s watching.

Happiness is a bowl of cereal at midnight. A text that just says “thinking of you.” A long exhale after holding your breath for too long.

It is ordinary and extraordinary all at once.

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If You’re Still Chasing It…

If you’re reading this and thinking, “That sounds nice, but my life is too messy right now,” I hear you.

But maybe happiness doesn’t wait for perfect timing.

Maybe it’s already here, disguised as a quiet moment you’ve overlooked a hundred times.

Maybe the version of you that you’re waiting to become isn’t the key to your joy.

Maybe—just maybe—the person you are right now is worthy of happiness, without conditions.

You don’t need to become more to deserve joy.

You just need to pause long enough to let it find you.