The pursuit of happiness

"The Pursuit of Happiness"

“This part of my life… this right here? This is happiness. ” - The Pursuit of Happyness movie

What is it, where is it… The dictionary defines Happiness as feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. However, happiness can have a much deeper meaning than this for many people. As time goes on it seems happiness becomes rarer, so for the people of our generation we might describe it as a rare blissful and life-saving rock to cling onto in a storm of anxiety, depression and other struggles of life. For each person happiness is different, it comes in different sizes and forms, from different sources, and many people will dislike or frown upon another person ' s source of happiness. It is a personal thing that should be shared with the world but remain unjudged.

“Living without passion is like being dead”

J E O N J U N G K O O K Happiness is often fueled by passion, a well-known quote from musician Jeon Jungkook (above) 'Living without passion is like being dead' . He was referring to the joy and happiness that passion brings us. In his case it is the art of performance and creating music, but for another person

it could just as well be feeding the homeless or teaching children. Jungkook is encouraging the youth of today to find something to live for and hold onto it no matter how small or silly it is because it brings them passion. Nowadays, it seems we have less time for passion and therefore less time for happiness, people always advise you to do what makes you happy and follow your dreams, but at the same time, discourage you from taking that leap of faith for happiness to instead live a mundane life which you are not content with. So even when you find this source of happiness it is often hard to do what Jungkook says and follow it, simply because we have been taught to be less ambitious and to sacrifice happiness for a good stable job, the right amount of money and an average life. This is a main reason why our generation faces such a great amount of depression and mental health issues, being forced to let go of your source of happiness just to fit in with what older generations have told us will do no good for our outlook on life. This does not mean we should ignore their words, because they may indeed have

The Judgement of Happiness

some wisdom within them, not to peg your life on a dream, but living it without passion and therefore happiness would be as Jungkook said, miserable and 'like being dead' . At the beginning of our lives, we are originally asked what we want to be when we are grown up, our answers could vary from a princess/ prince, a celebrity to a doctor or fireman. As we get older, we are told to follow our dreams and do what we are passionate about i.e. what makes us happy. But when the time comes to making decisions regarding our futures, like attending university or which career path we should take we are immediately bombarded with all the reasons why we should not do what we love and all the risks we can take. Out of all of the Hollywood celebrities who got their big break, there is about 50x more who are struggling to pay their rent after trying to follow their dream.

Our dreams are called dreams for a reason, they seem like an impossible goal to reach and something we can only achieve in the world we create in our minds. This, of course, is not true, however that does not stop parents, friends and teachers from trying to give dreamers a ‘ reality check’ . A passion which you might find eccentric, or a form of happiness which you might not understand can be easy to judge. But the way we resolve such ways of thinking is to put ourselves in their shoes. Take the K-POP phenomena for an example. If you only speak English or are not Asian many people are quick to call you out for listening to it. They might go as far as making racist or xenophobic comments towards the artists and

call the fans obsessed. But if we were to put ourselves into a K-POP fan ’ s shoes, we might be able to understand why they have such a passion for the genre. The boy band that struck the world when they came to the West are known as BTS, they are not only renowned for their amazing performances, personalities and songs but also for their large and passionate fandom which some may refer to as intimidating. The fandom, called ARMY, have stated many times that a reason they find their happiness in BTS is because of their message to their fans, ‘LOVE YOURSELF’ , the boys are such strong believers in this message they made it the title of a campaign for the UN, an era of albums in their music as well as the name of their world tour. They spread a positive message to their fans not just about loving yourself but spreading love and saying it is ok not to be ok, in providing a place of love and comfort for their fans they receive that love ten times more. This also explains why the fans are so defensive of the band, an artist who receives so much hate for little to no reason should indeed be heavily

defended if it is the only source of happiness for millions of people. Now looking at this example we are able to understand the passion the ARMY have for BTS, and the passion of any person has with their own heavily judged form of happiness. As humans we should learn to respect each other, what we appreciate and what makes us happy. As parents or future parents, we should support the new generation in anything they choose to do, whether you approve or not, and be willing to fuel their source of happiness. And as the youth of today, we should pursue our happiness, in whatever form it comes, whether it is a boy band from South Korea, becoming a Hollywood star or being the next Picasso, we should reach for the sky and still have the support of the whole world. In being united by a mutual understanding of having a dream, we can truly pursue our happiness.

By Alisha Jahangir