Chasing Happiness

A true Jonas Brothers fan must’ve felt something from reading that title.

But, sorry, this isn’t about the Jonas Brothers.

I’ve been trying to read two books for months now; Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah and Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah. The former is an autobiographical book on Trevor Noah’s childhood. Now if you don’t know who Trevor Noah is please look him up, he’s very very smart! The latter is a fictional book by Ishmael Beah about a community recovering from war. He also wrote (and lived) A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, which was a book about his time as a child soldier during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Both of these books make me sad whenever I think of them, although they have happy endings (I haven’t really finished them, but in my head these are the “endings”): Trevor goes on to become one of the greatest comedians of the 21st century (he hosts The Daily Show) and of course, a community recovering from war is a good thing.

But being someone who has been chasing happiness for a long time, I don’t know if these are the kind of books I should be reading because the process of getting to that happy ending involves a lot of emotional moments. The same applies for the Netflix series, The Spy, which seems very interesting, but it gives me this feeling of melancholy that I can’t seem to shake off even after deciding to quit the show nearly three weeks ago. And for some reason, just yesterday I found myself trying to watch another episode.

That’s the thing about sadness, once you feel it too often it becomes your “comfort” feeling and you keep wanting to stay in that state because the feeling of being happy becomes too foreign. Happiness shouldn’t be something that we have to chase. We shouldn’t have to tire our minds and emotions in the pursuit of something that should be a constant in our lives because life is meant to be beautiful.

I don’t think I know where I’m going with this post.

Maybe just to say this, if you know you’re depressed or could be triggered into depression then please stay away from sad books, TV shows, songs and films. You might say “it’s just art”, but sometimes consuming art comes with a price that no one should have to pay.

Life should be about enjoying things you love – even when people make fun of you for loving One Direction music. You shouldn’t have to chase happiness because happiness should begin every time you do something, including the most normal things like grocery shopping or looking at memes.

OK maybe it is about the Jonas Brothers just a bit. Happiness Begins is their latest album’s name and it is amazing!