I want to be less inhibited.  And to realize that I don't need anything or anyone to be madly in love with life and to experience it to its fullest.

It takes not caring so much what other people think.

It takes loving yourself.

It takes having good self-esteem.

It requires one to embrace the good and wondrous and lovely and beautiful and colorful, and to let go quickly of the bad and ugly and difficult (although difficult often yields beauty and joy).  Why do we hold on so tightly to the things that make us sad and unhappy?

The truth is, I love the way I am when I am less inhibited by useless notions of right and wrong ("Is it okay to say that?  What if they don't see it as a joke?  What if they don't like me?").  I feel like I have just chipped away a bit of the surface of it, but have yet to rid myself of the whole.

The truth is, you can never escape yourself.  No matter where you move, what job you have, what friends like you, who your family is, what you accomplish in life...though it may sound cliche, happiness starts from the inside out.  If you're not happy here and now, will you really be happier with peripheral changes?  

I think a great part of happiness comes from deeply experiencing your life; in a way giving yourself permission to enjoy the good parts uninhibited and uncensored.  Of course I'm not encouraging drug use or promiscuity.  Just being free to enjoy the simple little things that make us all glad to be alive and human.  Skipping to class on your way to finals, letting your breath catch in your throat from sight of a sunrise, taking 20 minutes to sit on your front porch in the cool of dawn simply being and listening to birds singing...

"Happiness is not a destination, but a method of life." -Burton Hills