What makes me happy

Hi, I’m Anniina, one of the writers of this blog. We have to write six different text about happiness and this is the first one of those. In this text, I’m going to be talking, well actually writing, about my own happiness.  I’m not going to talk or write, about my own mental health now. No, I’m going to write about what makes me feel happiness. About things that make me happy or calm. 

     If someone would ask me, what makes me happy, I would probably tell them straight away music and traveling. Then I would start to think about my answer and then correct myself saying my family. Those first two things that I said are things that make me happy because I love them. I´m not saying that I don´t love my family, but family is something that you can´t decide yourself. But how it turned around for me, it makes me happy. 

    Let’s look at these three things that make me feel happiness a little bit closer. 

Music

    I think everyone has their own reasons why some things make them happy. Same thing with music. My reason for that is probably the feeling when you can play the really difficult part of the song on piano, or you hit the high note when you’re singing, and then there’s the songs that you listen on Spotify that are your favourite songs.  

    Songs, and definitely songs with lyrics, can make you feel sad, angry and happy because of the lyrics or how the instruments sound together. When you find a new song and you start to listen the words that the singer is singing, you usually think:” What the *biib* is this singer singing and why is she or he singing these words?” But when you finally understand the meaning of the song, it makes it thousand times better. I have favourite songs that are my favourite just because of the lyrics.  For example Shawn Mendes is one of my favourite artist because of his lyrics. 

    Music also has the power of turning off everything that is going on in this world. Music can make you forget about Trump or homework. Not forever, but for a few minutes.

    So… Music makes me feel happy because I, like I said, love it. I love how it can make people feel so many different emotions, and it’s only a sound that your ears hear. If I would go deaf right now, I don’t know how I could do it. 

Traveling

    I love traveling and I’m lucky that I’ve been born to a family that travels a lot. I’ve seen a lot of different places and different cultures.

    When you think about traveling, you of course think about airplanes and maybe sun and beaches or then you might think about food, ships and museums. I love traveling to somewhere where it’s warm. For example, my favourite places are the Republic of Dominique and Greece. I also love Iceland, Austria and France, but I’m not that into museums, I prefer places where I can lay down at the beach and go swimming in the ocean or pool.  

    The first picture is from the Republic of Dominique. And the second one is from Iceland. I have taken both of them.

    Why do I love traveling and why does it make me feel happiness? Answers to those two questions are simple. Reason one, it’s fun to see how differently people live. Example when you go to Africa, North America or Asian it’s so much different than in Finland or Sweden.Even in South Europe, Spain, Italy or France, the difference is huge. We are sleeping when they are going to restaurants to eat dinner. 

    Reason two, traveling also is a thing that makes you forget what’s going on back home. It doesn’t make you forget Trump, but it definitely makes you forget your homework. Usually when you travel, it means you’re on holiday. Maybe I like traveling so much because it means that I don’t have school, and that’s the reason why it makes me happy. 

    The third reason why traveling makes me happy is that I can see new places and learn something new about the country’s culture that school doesn’t teach. In our English book, this one guy said that you can’t worry about things when sun is shining, and that’s true. And because I live in Finland and here there’s no sun, I need traveling.

My Family

    My family is a big part of my happiness. Music is also but let’s not start to compare these two things. My family supports me almost every decision that I do. My dad and mom don’t always support me when I might buy a really expensive hoodie but if I would say that I want to become a fitness model, they would support me, at least when they would see me being serious about it.

    It might be horrible to say that I know my favourite person of my family. And that’s Daffi.  

  Daffi is a bunny, but my dad says that she’s a dog in bunny’s body. Daffi sleeps in my bed with me and she likes to watch TV or HBO with us. She hates being alone. Daffi always listens to me and gives me little kisses on my nose.

    My family makes me happy because we have a lot of inside jokes and we have a lot in common especially with my dad, we are really similar. Even though I fight a lot with my older sister, she´s important to me. Same thing with my mom and dad. They are the only parents and siblings that I´ll have in my life.

Anniina Laakso