15+ People Who Discovered Happiness in the Little Things

It’s not that easy to answer the question of what happiness is. This is because each person has their own idea of it. But anyway, it is happiness that we all strive for and set big goals for ourselves. Eventually, we might find that elusive happiness in the smallest things — a hug from the nephew, the silence of the countryside, or our favorite song in our headphones.

The article uses images created by artificial intelligence.

• A couple of years ago, I used to love banana chips. I bought them often, but they suddenly disappeared from the market, and you could only find them in expensive mixes with a lot of tasteless ingredients. Today I walked in a small shop of sweets near my house by chance, and, oh wonder, there are bananas, coconuts and other delicious things on the counter! I’m sitting, eating, drinking tea, that’s happiness. © Overheard / Ideer
• 6 years after the wedding, I was lying on the sofa at night, looking at the streetlights outside the window and thinking how happy I was to be in my own new flat. Before that, we lived with my mother-in-law. © Lyudmila Lutskievich / Dzen
• I was born and grew up in a big city. After college, I married a guy from a countryside, with whom I studied together, and lived with him in rented flats for several years, until we decided to move to the village.
  We bought a house there, made renovations and have been living like this for many years, and I like it. I haven’t felt this happy in the city, I realized that the hustle and bustle is not my thing. I grow flowers, I have a dog and 3 cats, I love to go to the yard early in the morning and just enjoy nature and silence.
  None of my family and friends understand me. They say, “How can you leave the city to live in the countryside, while almost everyone does the opposite?” I didn’t expect it of myself either, but I will never leave the countryside again, because I’ve found my happiness. © Not everyone will understand / VK

• My husband and I live in different cities. We see each other only at weekends, on holidays and on business trips.
  And what a joy it is to come home to find my husband there! How pleasant it is to cook for him or watch TV with him in the evening. Or just read a book. I can’t wait until we finally live together. © Overheard / Ideer
• I’ve never had a good phone or camera. This seemingly unfortunate circumstance has fostered one thing in me.
  I used to spend a lot of time looking very carefully at happy people, nature, incredible sunsets (in short, anything that made me feel harmonious), trying to capture every little detail to keep it in my memory. In other words, I was just enjoying the moment, taking the most beautiful things I could absorb from it.
  And even now, when electronics are in abundance, I continue to “photograph” the world around me in my own particular way, as if I am afraid to scare away the most precious things in them by reaching for the camera. © Chamber #6 / VK
• I didn’t realize it takes so little to be happy. My boyfriend and I often go out late at night. There are only 2 streetlamps outside, so I always take a small flashlight with me. My beloved complained that he didn’t have a flashlight, so I gave him mine.
  I’ve never seen such excitement! For the entire walk, he shone it in different directions and was so sweetly happy. And then the whole next day he wouldn’t part with it. Well, it’s true what they say, happiness is in the little things. © Caramel / VK

• August 1996, the doctor has just confirmed my desired pregnancy — 5 weeks. I go out and suddenly realize that I’m craving salty food. There’s only a bakery on the way. You’d think, why would I go there?
  But I went in, and there on the counter is a round tank full of pickles! I took a bag full of pickled cucumbers, I walked and ate them on the go. I finished them all before I got home. Now I know what happiness is. © Señora maestra / Dzen
• I bought myself an ice cream and hid it in the freezer behind the frozen eggplants. The kids wouldn’t find it, let alone my husband.
  At night, when everyone was asleep, I went into the kitchen. On tiptoe. I sat down in the pantry, opened the box, licked. And then I hear footsteps behind me.
  And it’s my husband laughing. I hide the ice cream behind my back, saying I’m looking for a rag. He says, “Are you serious?” Why not? © Mamdarinka / VK
• I’m walking home from work, completely wiped out, not a drop of energy left. Near the metro, there’s this guy handing out flyers. I brushed him off at first, but then took one — why not? It was some silly ad for training courses.
  But then I burst out laughing. At the bottom of the flyer, there were drawings of geese walking through puddles. No idea why the geese were there, but it cracked me up. I picked up my daughter from daycare and told her, “Let’s pretend we’re geese on the way home.”
  So there we are, stepping around puddles, honking away. She was laughing so hard she could barely walk. And I thought — isn’t this happiness? Goofing around with your kid and hearing her laugh like that?
• When my mom sent me for bread as a child, I always chewed the crust of a loaf. Because the bread was still warm, and the crust was crispy. That’s what everybody did. Today’s children can’t understand the small joys we had. © Kirill von Stackelberg / Dzen

• My neighbor is an extraordinary man. He worked 2 jobs, worked his way up and managed to achieve success, made a fortune, and at the age of 40 he gave up everything. He divorced his wife, leaving her almost everything, quit his job, cut off almost all his contacts.
  And then he moved from the capital to our small town 9 years ago and lives very modestly on small interest from deposits and savings. He has no bad habits, he exercises all year round, reads, plays games. He says that he is tired of the pursuit of success and wants to live just for the fun of it.
  On the one hand, I don’t understand how you can change your lifestyle so abruptly and become a hermit? But on the other, the man is happy, and I’m even jealous a little. © Overheard / Ideer
• My nephew is 1 year old. We see each other rarely, because I live in another city. And it makes me very sad when I arrive, and he doesn’t recognize me.
  The last time I visited my brother, we were sitting with him and my nephew in the kitchen, my brother needed to go away somewhere so he asked me to babysit. The toddler was playing on the mat. At that moment, I got a call from work saying that I had a lot of problems. I couldn’t stand it and burst into tears.
  And my nephew came up to me and gave me a big hug. I haven’t felt such happiness for a long time. Immediately I felt so light and good at heart. It might seem that a hug is a small thing, but it helped me to pull myself together and deal with work normally. © Not everyone will understand / VK
• I just paid off the last installment of my student loan. This nightmare is officially over. As I was walking, I saw a coffee shop that I always thought was too fancy for me.
  But this time I went in, ordered their specialty latte, and they drew me a perfect heart on it. So here I sit, drinking this delicious coffee and feeling so happy! © Fields_Of_Elysium / Reddit

• I went out with my dog to the shop in the middle of the day. On the way back, we were walking past the school, the children were having a break, they were all outside.
  One girl, about 10 years old, saw my dog, came up to us and asked, “Can I pet it?” All the kids here are used to asking, they don’t just pull out their hands. I said, “You can pet it, the dog will be happy.” And then other children came up to pet the dog. This episode literally made my day today. © vaditch
• I realized that happiness consists of small moments of the most ordinary life when I caught this feeling of freedom and enjoyment of life recently, just walking along the seafront in the afternoon after work in a fresh breeze, singing along to my favorite song from my headphones at the top of my lungs. We should learn to catch such moments more often. © Overheard / Ideer
• I’m currently on a train with my parents going back to our ancestral home. We had to wake up at 4 a.m. to reach on time. So I was sitting beside my mother and I felt vaguely hungry because it had been 4 hours since I had woken up. My mother was sleeping beside me.
  And I kid you not, she just suddenly woke up and asked me, “Babu, you’re hungry, let’s eat something.” I hadn’t even said anything or tried to get her attention in any way. She just knew. This just made me smile so much because mothers are so cool. © Priya / Quora

• Today, I realized that I am the luckiest woman in the world. And all because in 37 years of life, I have never heard an argument about who takes out the trash.
  Turns out a lot of people tend to share this chore. And many men feel even offended about it. My parents never brought it up, although their relationship is hardly ideal. My ex-husband never mentioned that taking out the trash was killing his ego, either. © pozitif_fire
• My 14-week-old laughed today for the first time and my heart swelled x 1000000000. Being a mom is the best. © swirmy4921 / Reddit

And here are more stories about people who found happiness in the little things.