Happiness, as I actually live it
When I was younger I treated happiness like a finish line. I kept thinking that the next title, the next move, the next thing I could show people would settle me. Sometimes it worked for a weekend. By Monday the feeling thinned out and I was back to scanning for the next climb. I did not need more milestones. I needed ordinary days that felt honest.
Most mornings I wake up before the noise. The city is quiet and the light is gentle. I make coffee and step out on the balcony for a few minutes. There is nothing mystical about it. I look at the street, watch a dog walker cross the same patch of pavement at the same time, and feel the air on my face. I could scroll my phone but I try not to. Those minutes do not make the day extraordinary. They make it mine.
Work fills the bulk of my hours. Happiness shows up here in small pieces, not in a single strike. I run a small perfume brand. There is nothing glamorous about the parts that people do not see. Bottles arrive late and you carry them up the stairs because the driver refuses to do a second trip. Labels misprint and you peel them off one by one with your fingernail. A courier loses a box and you only find out when a customer sends a polite message asking where their order is. These are not moments that create joy on their own. The satisfaction is quieter. It is in the rhythm. I learned to enjoy the exact second when the alcohol cloud lifts in a new batch and the heart notes show themselves. I like wiping a counter until it squeaks clean and lining up a row of finished bottles that look identical because I paid attention. I like the message that says a scent made its way into someone’s morning routine. Happiness here is repetition with care. I still get irritated when things go wrong. I just do not make the irritation the main story.
In the middle of the day I try to eat without a screen. It sounds minor, but it changes the shape of the afternoon. When I eat while reading three tabs and half a chat thread I feel restless after. When I sit down with a proper plate and nothing else, I stand up calm. I am not selling a ritual. I am describing a small decision that consistently improves my mood.
After lunch I handle the boring parts. Receipts. Inventory. Ads that need tweaking. This is the kind of work that used to make me feel like I was wasting time because it did not look creative. Now I see it as housekeeping for the business and for my head. A tidy spreadsheet is not joy. It is a cleared runway. Low stress at 6 p.m. depends on these dull hours at 2 p.m.
Evenings vary. Sometimes I drive to Karama to restock a partner store and I end up standing in a narrow aisle chatting about what sells and what just sits there. Sometimes I walk around the block and take the long way home so that my brain can unwind from the to do list. Sometimes I sit with my parents and watch cricket with a running commentary that is half analysis and half family jokes. If someone had told me that this was where satisfaction lives, I would have called it boring. It is not boring from the inside. It is grounding. The anchor is not the activity itself but the feeling of belonging to a place and to people.
There is also the website I am building where citizens can rate their elected representatives. That project carries a different kind of energy. It does not offer the instant feedback that a physical product does. No one texts to say that a new feature smelled amazing. The wins are slower and less photogenic. A clean profile page that loads fast on a weak connection is a win. A comment thread that stays civil without constant moderation is a win. I used to chase validation that arrived quickly and loudly. This work trained me to respect progress that hides.
I read a lot about gratitude and ignored most of it because it sounded like forced optimism. What changed my mind was a very plain practice. At night I write down three things that already exist in my life that I am glad to have. I do not perform. I do not reach for poetry. Some days it is as simple as a quiet elevator, a cold glass of water, and a joke my friend sent. On other days it is a longer note about a tough conversation that went better than expected. This does not erase ambition. It moves my attention from hunting to noticing. Envy shrinks when I do this. It creeps back if I stop.
I used to believe that happiness required constant novelty. New places. New people. New gear. Novelty is exciting. It is not a plan. What lasts is maintenance. A shoe that is polished lasts longer. A friendship that is checked in on becomes sturdier. A body that sleeps and moves behaves better during the day. None of this looks impressive from the outside. It feels good to live inside it.
There are moments when I am not happy and I do not try to bully myself out of them. A batch fails and takes money with it. A shipment sits in customs for a week. A person I counted on disappears from a thread and stops replying. The old me would reach for instant fixes. The current version takes a walk, drinks water, writes down the exact next step, and stops doom thinking. I am not hiding from the feeling. I am keeping it proportional to the actual problem. That proportion is the difference between a bad hour and a bad week.
If there is a rule I trust, it is this. If something will not matter a year from now, it does not get to ruin today. I still react. I just shorten the half life of my reaction. This single idea has saved me more energy than any productivity system I have tried.
People matter more than any of this. A city can be beautiful and still feel empty if you do not have two or three people who tell you the truth. I keep them close. We do not need big plans. Coffee and a walk is enough. The quality of those conversations does more for my well being than any purchase I can think of. If my calendar is full of meetings with people who drain me, no amount of habit tracking will fix my mood.
I am not aiming for a permanent glow. That is a cartoon. My goal is a steady floor that can carry the normal swings. On some days the work shines and the numbers look good and I feel a buzz. On other days I am heavy and slow and nothing seems to click. Both days fit inside a life that I picked on purpose. I am not waiting for a moment when everything aligns. I am choosing small things that align today.
Happiness, for me, is not a grand conclusion. It is a set of ordinary choices that I repeat until they feel natural. Wake up a little earlier than the noise. Make something as well as I can. Finish what I start. Keep the people who sharpen me within reach. Let the day end without squeezing it for extra points. Then start again.
