What makes you happy?

It seems like an easy question to answer, right?

Happiness is ... what's your list?

Having loads of money, living in a big house, wearing all the 'right' clothes, driving a big car, having luxurious holidays? Keeping up with the trends you see on social media, looking a 'certain' way or at least trying to?

How about ... romantic love? Children? Family and friends?  

Or ... living in a beautiful place? 

So, again, I ask the question - What makes you happy?

I've talked before in this blog about dreams ... and reaching for new things in our lives. I think that's great - we all need dreams and things to aim for. But maybe we do need to ask ourselves if any new reality will make us happier than we are now.

And happiness is not just about possessions ... surely it has to be more.

Today I'm thinking about a book written by a particular brilliant author who was so clever and so observant. Her characters leap off the page and even though they were written 300 years ago, they are so identifiable. Human nature doesn't change, not really.

I'm talking, of course, about the works of Jane Austen - born December 16th in 1775 and the author of what we now know as 'classics' of English literature - Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815/16), and two other novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818 - the author had died in July 1817.

Her books have rarely been out of print in the past 300 years, although during her lifetime they brought her only moderate success or fame, because they were initially published anonymously. 

It was on this day in 1815 that Emma was published, although the official publication date on the title page indicates that it would go into circulation early in the following year.

If you've never read it, I encourage you to do so. It's about lives and people you might recognise today.

As with Jane Austen's other novels Emma reflects on issues like marriage, sex, age and social status and the challenges of being a woman in Georgian–Regency England. But it's main theme is the excessive pride or self-confidence that young people often have, and romantic misunderstandings.

The central character, Emma Woodhouse, is pretty, clever and rich, a likeable person living in a comfortable home. She has everything that would make her happy. However, she's a bit of a spoiled brat who's never really been told off for her behaviour. She's rather self centred and over confident, particularly when it comes to matchmaking. She's a busybody, she thinks she knows best, and is always trying to hook people up with each other, even though she has no skills in this area, or real life experience, and she doesn't realise that her 'meddling' in other people's affairs and love lives and manipulating other people's emotions is the cause of great pain for some of them. 

If you've not read it, I won't tell you how it works out ... no spoilers here. Suffice to say she gets her comeuppance.

As I said before, Jane Austen's characters travel through time to our own day, and down the centuries the novel has been adapted for a number of stage plays, TV programmes and films ... including a 1995 American movie entitled Clueless, based loosely on Austen's plot and set in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles in California. The teen comedy stars Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz, a rich spoilt teenager who's always had her own way, and thinks everyone should aspire to be like her. In current language, she thinks she's an 'influencer' but she has all the self confident, insensitive traits of Austen's Emma. She also tries to meddle in people's lives and ends up only hurting others. 

As I said - Emma is very modern really. When it comes to human nature - plus ça change! 

And when it comes to happiness, or chasing happiness, people don't change.

There's this interesting quote in Emma which relates to happiness and chasing happiness, which I find thought provoking.

Sometimes we look at our own lives and we compare ourselves to others - we  chase all the things that the world tells us will make us happy - success, money, status, possessions, a certain 'look' which might even mean we want to change our appearance. How many people these days have cosmetic fillers and surgery to achieve a certain 'look' but then crave more because those changes might have altered their appearance but haven't made them happier?

Sometimes we may get involved in other people's lives, trying to make life 'happier' for them. We try to organise people thinking that we're doing the 'right' thing for them. We might (insensitively) suggest that people should lose weight, or wear better clothes, change their appearance ... like that really will make them 'happier' and like we know what is best for them. I think not!

But this quote reminds us that true happiness lies within ourselves. Perhaps it is as simple as the people around us, the love of family, a good job, a park we can walk in, our pets. 

Oftentimes we don't recognise what is right under our noses which is capable of making us happy, right now, right here. Normal things which have nothing to do with what we own, our so-called 'status' in life, or what people think we are.

As I said, there's nothing wrong with dreams but sometimes we just need to stop and think and be the judge of our own happiness. Don't just follow the crowd but be true to ourselves. Let's not compare ourselves with others, but just be happy as we are, the best that we can be.

And if there's someone trying to order YOUR life and manipulate you, be brave and maybe trust your own instincts. Don't be put into someone else's mould, but know your own heart. Try not to listen to the critics, to those who might think and tell you that you are not attractive enough for a particular job, or too old to have love or too young to have success, or not 'current' enough to be important.

Love yourself, get to know what makes YOU happy ... and just .... breathe into it ... be grateful for life! And enjoy!