Unveiling the Secrets of the Original Word

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness – Bertrand Russell

This has been my favourite of all profound love quotes. Russell said something that piqued my interest: "True happiness." This made me ponder if there is such a thing as false happiness. Was it even happiness if it was false? We frequently attach words to other words, believing it's just a further description of the word, to show us the other side of the word when we're actually doing something completely different. 

Fake friends, fake love, true happiness, true love, and so on. These are terms that we made up on our own. Friendship is friendship because it cannot be faked; you are either pals or not; there are no fake friends. The same can be said of genuine love. Fairytales have led us all on a quest to find "true love," when all we're really looking for is love. Love is genuine because it can't be faked; you just know it's real because you can feel it. It's one of those phenomena that no one can describe.

There is also real happiness; "True happiness." Would you believe it if I told you happiness is a fleeting emotion? This is why the word "true" is frequently used to characterise the stability that comes with happiness. But we don't realise that permanence can't be linked to it because it's just happiness - simple, straightforward, fleeting happiness! But have you ever heard of the word "joy"? Joy is the meaning of "true happiness." Joy is eternal, constant, profound, and inexplicable. Joy is lovely!

A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. -Mother Teresa

Joy is not in things; it is in us. -Richard Wagner

If you look carefully at these two quotes, you will notice some parallels with Russel's quote on love. True happiness, according to Russell, is joy, as Mother Theresa emphasised in her statement on joy. When you're in love, your heart will be full of joy. "Joy is in us," Richard Wagner clarified further. This is what gives Joy its permanence; it is what happiness lacks. The fact that you can always find happiness in new items, such as a new movie, a new pair of shoes, or a new job. Happiness can be passed from one tangible object to another. That's why it's only temporary; you can't be content with the same thing for an extended length of time. 

This temporary feeling can be linked to what we understand as love and why the term "true love" came about.

True love originated to characterise the true depth of love when love itself is that deep. There is no such thing as true love or fake love; you either love someone or you don't. You'll often hear that finding the "right one" will lead to finding "true love." However, this is incorrect. What is the "right one"? Someone you're intended to be with, someone who complements you. If you consider this way, you'll realise you've wasted a lot of time waiting for and chasing the perfect person, when you could've created the perfect person all along. You can create your perfect. A circle is not a perfectly round shape on its own; two equal halves must join together to form the perfect shape. You're a half, your companion is the other half, and the two of you make each other perfect, complete. And with such a person, love brings joy; you don't need to search for real happiness if you're in a relationship where love exists. 

This is not to say that you must be in a relationship or discover love in order to be joyful. There are ways to discover our "true happiness," or what I call joy. 

STEPS TO FINDING JOY

Self-love

When it comes to ourselves, self-love is crucial. You can't give what you do not have. If you want to properly discover love, be in a stable relationship, and find your "true love," you must first love yourself. You will only be able to appreciate others if you first love yourself. And joy stems from such self-love because you're happy with yourself and proud of who you are. There's no need to be concerned or afraid because you've dealt with all of your negative thoughts and self-esteem problems with one thing: Love. And once you've mastered this, you'll notice that you're always happy for no apparent cause. Joy is inexplicable happiness.

Do what you love and love what you do

YOLO! You only live once. This does not mean we should waste our time making choices we may come to regret or living as if there is no future. It simply means that you only have one life, so don't waste it being unhappy. Every second, every minute, every hour matters. A day is only 24 hours long; you don't want to spend that much time being sad. Work where you want, go where you want, and do what you want. This is what YOLO stands for. Don't be careless, but also don't be overly careful. Just be fine. You'll rarely be unhappy if you do what you love; you'll always be beaming with love, and with that love comes Joy. 

Have a purpose in life. 

Do you realise that points one and two are meaningless if you have no cause to live? Surviving is not the same as living. If you don't have a purpose in life, you're just surviving; you're not living, you're not passing through life; it's the opposite. Simply discover a reason to live. A reason why you want to be on this planet. Why do you want to rise in the morning, and what do you want to accomplish for the day? Be enthusiastic about living because, without a reason to live, we have no reason to love ourselves, let alone strive to live life to the fullest. Without a purpose, we'll be incomplete and that sense of incompleteness would make us long for more, looking for things that can bring us temporary happiness and not Joy. 

If you check within yourself and you see that all these steps have been accomplished, then, congratulations because this article isn't meant for you because you have found the secret recipe to JOY.