What if happiness isn’t supposed to feel happy?
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the paradoxes that surround happiness and how even though most of us know it’s “not a destination,” we still treat it like one. We chase it through vacations, houses, cars, or perfectly filtered photos that look the way we wish we felt.
And listen, I am not judging… I know that pricey bean water definitely tastes like happiness.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize happiness is more of a thing you notice through gratitude and being present in the moment.
One of the big pieces of it for me is health. I need to feel good in my body to function properly and the older I get, the more I realize how much that matters. But what does that even mean, to feel good in your body?
For me, it means eating food that supports my brain and my energy, which sounds noble but mostly just means less junk. I wish “feeling good” included more ice cream, but sadly my body says otherwise. How rude!
So here’s the paradox: if health is part of happiness, and I feel best when I eat things that fuel me, then happiness doesn’t always feel good in the moment.
It’s not indulgent or decadent. Sometimes it’s downright boring. But it’s eating those lentils and starting the day with protein instead of pancakes that actually keeps me steady enough to enjoy the fun stuff.
And I think that shows up in photography too. Real happiness in photos rarely looks like the shiny, posed kind. It’s the unexpected between moments: the laughter from a tickle fight, the time together uninterrupted by yet more phone notifications, or even that moment that recalls a happy memory. On Friday during a family mini session, I asked the husband to twirl his wife and they both were chuckling remembering their dance lessons from their wedding.
Curiosity and creativity are intertwined for me. I try to meet everything, including my own feelings, with curiosity. What’s this feeling trying to say? What happens if I let it pass without rushing to “fix” it?
That same curiosity is what keeps me creative, even on days when I don’t feel like showing up.
I read something recently that stuck with me: Stop treating feelings like traffic lights.
Feelings are signals, sure, but they don’t need to decide whether we stop, go, or slow down. If we only acted when we felt “good,” we’d never show up to work, start hard conversations, or do anything slightly uncomfortable.
I think happiness is less about following a feeling and more about trusting the long-term repetitive process of being a human and still brushing my teeth even though I’m tired at night.
I’ll always be someone who reconsiders what I think I know… because I know enough to know I don’t know shit.
There’s no certainty in my world and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m still figuring out what that means day to day, though. How do you define happiness lately? (comments are open below)
