Daily Cascade

Feeling Happy

Prompt: Feeling Happy
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust
What are your thoughts about this prompt and/or what makes you feel happier, people or some other things?

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Many people as well as some things like good ideas, good books, good outcomes in my or in someone else's life, sunsets, a new day, and many other things add to my feelings of being happy, especially when and if I notice such things and appreciate them.

People, of course, are the most important. In fact, especially positive human interaction and good relationships of all kinds make me happiest the most.

These feelings of happiness I owe to my family, first. While I grew up as an only child to my mother, my extended family had a central role in my life. I adored and looked up to my aunts, uncles, and my grandmother. Their empathy for me and their interest in the details of my life such as my love of literature created a collective joy among us. I also loved my cousins, older or younger than me, a lot. As the result, one of my cousins about my age became my best friend for life, even though she lives far away now, in another country.

As nice as my mother was, it was my extended family that fired up and fulfilled my inherent need for connection. This is probably because positive relationships and interactions with other human beings have the greatest impact on happiness. In addition, laughter, shared experiences, mutual support, and that sense of belonging lead to emotional security. Yet, it is not just the laughter we shared; we also held each other up through tears and sad times and, especially during those times, we supported and consoled one another. This support might have come in the form of a compliment, being there for someone, and being kind when someone made a mistake.

I feel blessed and appreciated even to this day, when. in my family, I'm the second oldest person, now. The earlier bonds, the empathy, the friends and the relationships I formed later in my life, and all the shared joys and sorrows are testaments that, at the heart of happiness, lies the human connection.