"I have no idea what actually makes me happy. Not what's supposed to make me happy. Not what I'm grateful for, which is different. Not what looks like happiness from the outside."
"It happens in small corrections, tiny adjustments, almost imperceptible nudges that accumulate over decades until the shape of your happiness has been so thoroughly modified that you can't remember what it looked like before everyone started trimming it."
"I loved painting when I was young. Not seriously - I was never going to be an artist. But I loved the feeling of it. The mess, the colour, the hours disappearing while I mixed and layered and made something that didn't need to be good because it was mine."
A woman reflects on her husband's casual question about happiness, realizing she cannot identify what truly brings her joy. She lists expected answers like family and home, but recognizes these are not her genuine sources of happiness. Over decades, she has unconsciously edited her joy to conform to societal expectations, losing the essence of her true happiness. The process of modifying her joy has been gradual, with small adjustments that have obscured her original feelings and passions, such as her love for painting.
Read at Silicon Canals
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