Finding happiness in your everyday life can be challenging and can be one of the biggest challenges in your life. For those who struggle with mental health, happiness can seem nearly impossible to find and it becomes exhausting trying to fight for it. 

For me personally, I find “Happiness” being a treat in my day and when I feel that “Happiness” I thrive to keep that feeling for as long as possible. Some days it can feel like a battle with myself and a battle with others to hopefully win the feeling of happiness. Throughout the years I have read many books on happiness and books that just make me happy. 

A book that I read that promotes happiness is called; “ The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin. This book demonstrates how to successfully change your life for the better without actually changing your life. It uses ancient science techniques that have proven to promote happiness in your life, as well giving you a new perspective on life. One of my favorite quotes from this book is; “The days are long, but years are short”, which is a huge change of perspective that personally made me reconsider how I treat every day that is given to me. In this book the author gives three major ideas on how to promote the idea of happiness in your life, those ideas along the lines of; Declutter your environment to declutter your brain, relationships are learning experiences and don’t define who you are and money is like health. 

Another book that demonstrates “Happiness” is, “The Little Prince” by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. This book I read as a small child but to this day, I feel that it lightens up my day when I read it. The story is honest about loneliness, sadness and love in life and has a very strong story line for being a children’s book. My favorite quote from this book is; “All grown ups were once children… but only a few remember it”, which is another quote that leaves you with another perspective on how you treat your life. Though the book is ages 10+ and is only 9 pages long, don’t be fooled; it is very strong and inspires you to live your life to the fullest. 

Lastly, one of my favorite books, “The Old Man and The Sea” by Ernest Hemingway. This book doesn’t have the direct point of promoting happiness but it does a brilliant job doing so by showing what true determination and friendship looks like. This book is about an old man who is determined to catch a fish and has a younger boy with him on this mission. They struggle for what seems like forever and come to points where they just want to give up but they keep trying and while doing so they learn a huge life lesson. To me this book is a reflection on our lives and how determined we are to keep going and the determination to find happiness. These three books have the strongest messages in them and are able to inspire you to thrive for happiness even in the most difficult situations. Though the feeling of “Happiness” might seem nearly impossible to achieve, it is important to thrive for it and to never give up on the determination to find it.