Happiness is a butterfly.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Yet sometimes words can reveal more than pictures when it comes to more abstract topics like happiness, love, death, destiny and friendship. I'm sure everyone has come accross quotes that have inspired them or had an impact on their life in some way. Below is one of my personal favourites and I will go through why I like it and what it means to me.

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)  

This simile was the brainchild of Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American novelist and writer whose father tragically died at sea when he was a child. Misfortune struck again 5 years later when a sporting accident left him lame and bedridden for the remainder of his life. His first novel Fanshawe was unsuccessful and he only started enjoying success with his writing later in life. Despite his tough childhood and adolescence, he always had a carefree and optimistic perspective on life. An ideology which he crystalised so elegantly in one simple phrase.

I find it fascinating how he captivated his view on happpiness so eloquently and succinctly. Happiness and butterflies are both colourful, graceful, carefree and often elusive on the cloudy days when they are needed most. Yet for me the parallell between them continues beyond that. These strangely mesmerising creatures all emerge blissfully after what must seem like an eternity in a dull and motionless cocoon. Yet their limited time as a butterfly does not appear to be diminished by spending a large part of their life trapped with no escape. Similarly to the butterfly and cocoon, people who seem to have found happiness have often gone through tougher times in their lives. Perhaps we even need the gloomy periods in life to put the joyful times into perspective and treasure them more.

Happiness is a state of mind that cannot be forced or controlled, to pursue a constant state of euphoria would achieve nothing more than turning a happy day into an ordinary one. Instead I try to live the ordinary days in life for what they are so that any one of them has the potential to become extraordinary, and cherish them when they do.