What makes you happy?

I have been working during the last months on a really great project. We asked people about what makes them happy. It was a photo competition in Finland where people could send max. 3 items about something or someone what makes them happy and tell couple of sentences about the photo.

We made a webpage for the competition where we have been sharing the photos we received. It was nice to see that even though we think so that materialistic things are so important, most of the photos focused on the same sources of happiness. It was (in random order): nature, family members or beloved ones, pets, sometimes some nice food, or being at a nice event.

Once during this whole process also I stopped for a second to think about the question and wrote a short summary about the things what make me happy.

It was:

"I am the most happy when i can work on things i believe in. when i feel that i have a positive impact on the world. Also walking in Keskuspuisto (Helsinki) makes me very happy every time. i feel that it is my forest and somehow i feel very connected to that natural environment. i am happy when i meet someone i like and we have a good conversation. when i can feel close to a stranger even though i know that they will leave soon and we might not ever see each other again. i am also happy when i love someone and i can feel that i belong to that person. i am happy when i can see the good in someone who made me sad or dissapointed me because i see then that there was a reason why i tursted him first and things are not 100% black or white. it makes me happy to see if someone creates something good and is succeeding."

The photo competition was closing on April 26th but I am already thinking if we should keep the #mhawhappiness hashtag and our email adress and encourage people to keep on sending photos also in the future. We`ll see this later on.

But one is sure already: there will be a photo exhibition from our favorite twenty three photos at RUPLA in Helsinki (Finland) . The opening event will be on the 23rd May staring at 17:00 at the same place. If you are in Helsinki that time you are more than welcome to join the opening event and if not please feel free to have a look at the photos what people sent to us.

One more thing connected to happiness: it made me so happy when i saw the support of my friends regarding this exhibition, especially when i saw that people who are more distant friends will join us. Then during jogging today the MP3-player jumped to a random song of Birdy what i have not known before. It is called Give Up and it summarized so well how I felt today afternoon: "All the times I won't believe// Yours will be the voice that is on my shoulder// All the things you've said to me// Written on my heart, every word you've spoken.// I know you, you'll never give up on me, give up on me// If only I let you give up on me, give up on me// Oh, when I'm out of place, when I'm losing faith// You're the one that never lets me wrong// You'll never give up on me, give up on me, give up on me."

Thank you ❤️