Where is Happiness

My mom was one of those overprotective parents while I was growing up. I spent a lot of my time in solitude going on little adventures in our yard as a kid. I had magical trees, a side of the house I would sit on to watch the clouds and there was also an army missile in my neighbor's yard I would go look at now and again.  My childhood though I spent a lot of it alone was always fun. I remember coming home from school and just going outside to watch the clouds pass over me in the sky. I always had this weird connection with nature. I was also afraid of the dark.

When I became an adult (21yrs) I begin to see the world for what it is. I looked back at my childhood and understood mother was so overprotective. My fear of the dark became the fear of the world. You have money, relationships, jobs, careers, diseases, social status, insects and the list goes on about things that can scare someone in this lifetime. I eventually conquered my fear of the dark by accepting that if something is going to defeat me in the darkness, I will down fighting. I saw the world like this, if something was going to defeat me in life, I will go down fighting, not afraid of the unknown. When I was afraid of the dark, I would be afraid of the images in my mind and not of what I was actually seeing. Life I saw like this too, I was afraid of things that were not real and at one point in time I allowed that to stop me from living with a purpose. I've grown a lot since becoming an adult. I've matured. I've faced my fears with the mindset of fighting if anything was to emerge that would try to stop me. Truth is those things never emerged.

Where does Happiness fall in all of this? Well, life takes the happiness away from people, some of my most happiest moments were enjoyed being fully engulfed in the present moment. When I would stare at those clouds as a young boy, my soul felt like those clouds; free and formless, adjusting with the time. When we become adults we slowly lose our happiness because of our past mistakes and worries about the future. We miss the opportunities of the present like noticing that your wife has done her hair and nails just for you or the soothing sound of the shower that's relaxing your body; focus on that sound. Happiness is always there, it's just that most people don't take the time out to care!