The quest to find happiness has brought many of us disappointment and disillusionment. Feeling happy is an elusive goal and trying to achieve it can lead to frustration and potentially problematic habits. I say that we should not seek to feel happy.
Instead, we should try to feel connected to ourselves. Which may or may not feel good. When I am connected to myself, I may feel hungry, tired, lonely, satisfied, overfull, restless, joyous, irritated, frustrated, or lost.
The more-and more often-connected to myself that I am, the earlier I catch each of these sensations and the less of a big deal it is. When I catch my hunger early, I make appropriate nutrition choices and I eat to satiation. When I allow myself to get to starving, I eat whatever is in front of me and I tend to eat until uncomfortably full.
When I catch my sleepiness early, I easily fall asleep. If I allow myself to get overtired, I can get hyper, active without direction or intention, and I can crash into a feeling of sad without being able to put myself to sleep.
When I catch my loneliness early, I have the time to consider who and what I need. I can reach out to the people who will make me feel loved or stimulated in the right way and make the time to connect in the manner that brings out what I need. If I wait too long, the loneliness can get existential in nature or I can get desperate, hanging out with a random someone who happened to be available, resulting in me feeling a lack of resonance and further loneliness.
Each of these feelings is cyclical. No matter how many times I satisfy my hunger, I will get hungry again. The same is true for fatigue and loneliness.
It is impossible to feel good or happy all the time. But, we can endeavor to stay connected to ourselves, which then allows us to maintain our inner homeostasis.