I don't think happiness exists. For myself, anyway. I think that out of a scale of 100%, people generally are content at an 85% (my understanding of life, anyway). I say this because not everything in life runs smoothly, and set-backs, disappointments and sadness bring down the percentage. 

If most people can be happy around 85% of the time, let's say being content, or somewhere in the middle of being completely miserable and happy is 60%. Contentment in the sense of things being status quo, your ability to handle adversity, etc.

I think for me personally, I run at about 30-40% on a daily basis. I just feel unhappy, and miserable. I'm tired of adversity, of things just always having to be an uphill battle for me. I just wish things would come easily for me, for once in my life. 

In thinking about my own happiness, I don't think I've really felt content since I was 15. I think that's when I started being preoccupied about what girls thought of me, and I very much so intertwined that with my self-worth. If a girl didn't like me, then I didn't like myself. And that kind of rationalization went on for awhile. I felt unattractive, unwanted, ugly. Things just started getting harder from there. Heartbreak and heartache abounded. 

I think I lived a sheltered life, and that was shattered with my first relationship. I think I learned about the cruelty of this life and that heartbreak is one of the worst things to feel. Looking back on it, I had a very naive conception of what love was. 

I think the harshness of this world came to light with the passing of my dad when I was 17. He held our family together and in many ways protected me from the cruel realities of this world. I was sheltered from alcohol and drug abuse, from cigarettes, from cheating and being unfaithful. All of these things I had to deal with and learn about from my own personal experiences later in life. 

But I digress. I had to watch my dad die right in front of me. I remember it was a Friday afternoon, right around 2 pm. I remember that was when I first began to tumble into depression, a hole I still haven't been able to get out of, honestly. I started doubting my faith in a higher power. What kind of god would take away a loving and wholesome man from a boy? What kind of god would take the life of a healthy man, who used to run track, who never ate any fried food in his life? How would I ever pick up the pieces of my shattered life? How would I ever live a somewhat normal life? Truth is, life was never the same after. I started drinking, I began thinking about killing myself. A lot. I tried to take my own life a couple of times when I was 18. I wanted so badly to end my life, to end the suffering, the feel the sweet relief of death.