By Aaron Furman

The key to happiness 

Over my short 22 years in life, I’ve struggled with mental health. There are a plethora of reasons why, but I won’t go into that now. Instead, I will take you through what I have found to combat this mentality. I’ll pass down the knowledge that has helped me to find happiness at my lowest points.

However, I need to stress that you cannot be happy all the time. It might sound obvious, but you have to go through sadness to then be happy. In fact, I feel it is a prerequisite for happiness and you’ll be emotionally richer from the upsetting experience. 

From what I’ve gathered, life is just waves of peaks and troughs. For a time you might feel hardship, pain and loneliness. Then, like the switch of a button you feel fulfilment, enjoyment and contentment. I am a firm believer that you need to go through your lowest point, to fully appreciate your happiness. 

We are about to embark on probably the most stressful, but rewarding endeavour of our lives. Let this be your toolkit to survive your emotions. 

I have found three ways to achieve happiness, they are as follows:

1. Finding meaningful connections. Friends, family and your lover or multiple lovers (if you are into that sort of thing). We are social creatures and those we surround ourselves with will make a huge impact on our well-being. If someone is toxic and you feel that they are not reciprocating your friendship 50/50 – cut them out. 
2. Find your passions and make it a hobby. This is a simple message but filled with complications. You need to try everything to find what you truly enjoy doing. This could be absolutely anything. I promise that in this whole wide world there will be something you love doing. I’m lucky because I’ve found the hobbies that excite me. I play poker, I enjoy film photography and I perform my spoken word poetry. These are essential in making me feel myself and play an integral role in defining who I am. 
3. Create personal targets and achieve them. There are two approaches to attaining this concept. The first is setting many small goals you can accomplish in less then a day. This could be washing and ironing your clothes or making a complicated meal for dinner. The latter is setting bigger more advanced goals. This could be running a marathon, learning to play a song on a new instrument or painting a picture. The bigger the goal, the more rewarding the payoff. I’m certain some goals have already popped into your head, from current to past.    

I sure as hell don’t know everything, to be honest, I constantly question the things I do know. However, if I’m sure of anything, it’s that these three methods are a sure-fire way to bring you happiness. If like me, you are more prone to feeling low, follow the steps above and I guarantee you’ll feel better. Unless you have just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and have been given a week to live – that’s a bitch.