How we keep happiness within reach
One day, while reflecting on the concept of happiness, I asked myself why we so often think of it as something that belongs either to the past or to the future. We say, “I was happy back then,” or “I will be happy when…” Yet we rarely consider that what once made us happy could—and perhaps should—continue to nourish us in the present and even in the future. If an experience genuinely brought happiness at one point in time, why should that happiness be confined to that single moment? Shouldn’t happiness be a continuum rather than a fleeting event?
At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, I was reluctant to leave my house and postponed grocery shopping for as long as possible. When I could no longer delay it, I spoke with a friend about the fact that I only had a simple mask. She suggested I check my garage, reminding me that we often buy N95 masks for home maintenance projects and then forget about them.
After hanging up, I went to the garage and started looking. To my surprise, I found a couple of N95 masks—an unexpected treasure, a small pot of gold in an anxious moment. Later that same day, I spoke with another friend, a physician, who told me she would soon need to return to the hospital to see patients. She explained that they were facing a shortage of N95 masks. I mentioned that I had just found a couple and offered them to her, knowing she needed them far more than I did.
At this point, you might be wondering: what does this have to do with happiness?
The answer came to me shortly after. Just as those masks were there all along—useful, valuable, but forgotten—happiness can also remain hidden within us. We often store it away in memories from the past and fail to realize it is still available. Those moments of joy did not lose their value simply because time passed; we lost our awareness of them.
When we consciously revisit meaningful experiences, we recover the emotions attached to them. In doing so, we bring that happiness back into the present—especially during difficult times—and sometimes we are even able to pass it on to others, just as I did with the masks. This act is also a form of gratitude: honoring experiences whose benefits can continue to unfold throughout our lives.
Perhaps the key is not to search endlessly for happiness somewhere else, but to remember that some of it is already with us—quietly waiting, like a forgotten mask, to be found again and put to use.
Logosophy teaches that “(…) if we are conscious of what we possess and feel happy with it, we must ensure that nothing affects nor decreases within us the consciousness of our possession. It follows then, that if we possess a portion of happiness, for example, let us not forget it at any moment and even more so, let us not be embittered by whatever small incidents our daily life might confront us with thus threatening and perturbing the serenity of our spirit.”
About the Author
Juliana de Mendonça is part of the board of the Logosophical Foundation in the United States and Canada and a dedicated student of Logosophy. She writes about personal development, education, and conscious evolution, drawing inspiration from her own journey of self-betterment through the study and practice of Logosophical Science.
