Do you know someone who continues to live a fascinating and wonderful life?

In such a case, thoughts come popping into my mind like bubbles from nowhere, “How did their life become so adorably sweet? How come they can still manage to laugh and play around despite a busy stressful life?” 

What is their secret? How did they become genuinely happy?

Happy people love themselves. It starts from within.

My theology professor once said that “loving means accepting.”  To love yourself means accepting that you are not a perfect being. Behind the imperfections lies a great amount of courage and the willingness to discover ways on how to improve your repertoire so as to recover from your mistakes.

Genuine happiness also pertains to being content with what you have. This includes the job you have, the way you look, relationships you have, the place you live, your car, and all the things you now have. Truly, when you achieve contentment, you know the answer to the question of how to be genuinely happy.

The discovery starts from within which eventually leads to something better. However, if you keep on saying that life has been treating you unfairly despite what you already have, you will never be able to find genuine happiness.

I believe that life is about finding out what is right and wrong, trying and failing, and wining and losing. These are things that happen as often as you inhale and exhale. Failure in a person’s life has become as abundant and necessary as air. However, this fact should not hinder you from being happy.

How do you achieve genuine happiness in spite of the possibility of failure? Happiness can be achieved easily in various ways. It can be attained from efforts like improving your quality of life and being, cleaning up your room, helping a friend, taking care of your sick dog, & trying again after a bout with failure.

Imagine life as a big scoreboard like those used in sports. Every time you take a step forward, you score points. Wouldn’t it be nice to look at the board at the end of each game and say, “Whew! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot.” This is a better option than looking at a blank scoreboard and murmur, “Geez, I didn’t even hit a single today. I wish I had the guts to try harder. I could have won!” People who think this way simply opt to walk away.

Genuine happiness isn’t about driving the hottest Formula 1 car, getting the employee of the year award, earning the highest pay, or beating the sales quota. Sometimes, the most sought after prizes in life do not always go to the fastest, strongest, bravest, or the best.

Everybody has his or her definition of happiness. Happiness for a writer may mean launching best selling books. Happiness for a basketball rookie may mean getting the rookie of the year award. Happiness for a beggar may mean a lot of money. Happiness for a businessman may mean success.

So, how do you become genuinely happy? Simple. You do not need to have the best things in this world. It is about doing and making the best out of everything. When you find yourself smiling at your own mistake and telling yourself, “Oh, I’ll do better next time.” Happiness is accepting mistakes and having the willingness to stand up and try again.

Happiness is learning to accept your own faults. For as long as you know how to accept yourself, others will accept you. For as long as you love and know how to love, you will receive love back tenfold.

How do you become genuinely happy? Let me quote a friend of mine, “Most of us know that laughter is the best medicine to life’s aches and pain. However, most of us don’t know that the best kind of laughter is laughter over one's self. ‘Coz then you don’t just become happy… you become free.”

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