Moon River

How do you define happiness?

For centuries, philosophers tried to answer that question. 

Aristotle believed happiness (eudaimonia) wasn’t a feeling at all, but a lifelong practice of becoming the best version of ourselves.

Epictetus taught that happiness begins the moment we stop trying to control things outside of us. 

Marcus Aurelius said it’s found in the calm acceptance of what life places in our hands.

While Plato believed happiness comes from harmony; when the mind, the heart, and the soul finally agree on something.

And honestly?

Sometimes I read those ancient ideas and think,

they must’ve lived quieter lives.

Because happiness today feels so much messier, less like a philosophical ideal

and more like a question you whisper to yourself at 3 a.m. when the world finally stops talking.

So lately I’ve been asking myself:

What does happiness mean to me?

Not the version people post on social media.

Not the one wrapped in quotes or stitched into tote bags.

But my version.

The version built from everything I’ve survived, loved, outgrown, and every city that’s left its fingerprints on me.

I used to think happiness was something I had to chase,

something outside myself,

in other people,

in their validation,

in promises I hoped they’d keep.

But the older I get, the more I realize

happiness is quieter than I thought.

Less fireworks, more breathing room.

Less “finally having it all,”

more “learning to live with myself in every season.”

These days, happiness looks like small things:

The way morning light falls into my Hong Kong apartment. Finding the courage to step on a treadmill again, after convincing myself my body wasn’t ready. Slow walks, steady heartbeats, no pressure to be anything other than… here.

Happiness feels like the moment I stop running, not from life, but from myself.

The moment I stop trying to be extraordinary and let myself enjoy the simple fact that I’m still standing. Still learning. Still soft, even after everything.

From my past, I’ve learned that people come and go, but each one leaves something behind, a lesson, a bruise, a memory, a reminder. Some showed me how deeply I can love. Some showed me what I should never settle for again. And some showed me who I don’t want to become.

From my present, I’m learning that happiness doesn’t always feel loud. It’s often gentle, it appears in the little ways I choose myself. In the way I listen to my body. In the way I forgive myself for taking longer than I thought I would. In the way I keep moving, even slowly.

And when I look at the future, I don’t see a straight path anymore. I see possibilities,  cities I haven’t walked, people I haven’t met, versions of myself I haven’t discovered yet.

Maybe happiness isn’t something we arrive at. Maybe it’s something we build, moment by moment.

Choice by choice.

Step by step.

A quiet decision to stay open,

even when life gets heavy.

So here’s to the pursuit of happiness, 

not the frantic chase,

but the soft kind.

The kind where you meet yourself again,

and again,

and again…

And each time,

you stay a little longer.

Because happiness, I’m starting to realize,

isn’t something we find.

It’s someone we grow into.