Another birthday is almost here.
And with birthdays come the usual questions.
Am I living fully?
Could I have done better?
Am I happy?
Birthdays have a funny way of slowing us down. For a moment, the noise becomes quieter and we look at the road behind us. We count the wins, revisit the mistakes and wonder about the things we are still waiting for.
This year, one question keeps returning to me: what really makes us happy?
Every so often, I travel back to Ekedoli in Vihiga County, my birth village. I cannot claim to be deeply attached to the place. I do not know everyone there. But roots have a way of pulling you back.
Whenever I visit, there is one person I never fail to see.
Esteri.
She is an elderly woman in her seventies, although you could easily mistake her for someone much younger. She walks upright, works hard and seems completely uninterested in the things many of us spend money chasing in the city.
No elaborate skincare routine. No diet plans. No wellness retreats.
Just life.
And laughter.
Esteri has one of the most infectious laughs I know. It is deep, loud and completely unfiltered. You hear it and you cannot help smiling.
What fascinates me is that her life is not easy. Water still needs to be fetched. The farm still needs attention. Rural life comes with its own struggles.
Yet she seems content.
And every time I see her, I find myself asking the same question.
How does someone with so little seem to enjoy so much, while many of us with so much still feel like something is missing?
Then there is my brother, Tim.
For years, he lived and worked in Nairobi. Then one day, he decided he had had enough.
He packed up and went home.
“I need to breathe again,” he told me.
It sounded almost reckless at the time. Leave the city? Walk away from the familiar routine? Start again?
But he did.
Today, the once quiet family compound is full of life. His wife and children seem settled. The farm produces much of what they eat. When we visit, there is something deeply satisfying about sitting down to a meal and knowing exactly where most of it came from.
Tim still works hard. Farming is not easy. There are bad seasons, unpredictable weather and plenty of reasons to worry.
But there is something different about the life he has built.
Perhaps it is the sense of control. Perhaps it is the connection to the land. Perhaps it is simply knowing that the things occupying your day mean something to you.
I have seen the same thing in friends who have made unconventional choices. Someone starts a small business. Another joins a hiking group. Someone else spends weekends volunteering in their community. Another finds joy in long evening walks or simply having a place where they can sit with people who know them beyond their job title.
A friend once described this as having a “third place”.
Home is one place. Work is another. Then there is that third space where you can breathe, connect and simply be yourself.
It could be a church, gym, football pitch, hiking group, community project or even a favourite café.
The place itself does not matter as much as what it gives you.
A sense of belonging.
As we grow older, we sometimes become very good at building lives that look successful but do not necessarily feel fulfilling.
We chase better jobs, bigger houses, nicer cars and the next milestone. We tell ourselves that happiness is waiting on the other side of the next achievement.
Then we arrive there and discover another mountain waiting.
Maybe we have misunderstood happiness.
Maybe it is not always the spectacular feeling we imagine.
Maybe it is Esteri laughing without worrying about whether anyone thinks she has a reason to laugh.
Maybe it is Tim eating food from a farm he built with his own hands.
Maybe it is a friend calling after a long day.
Maybe it is finding a place where you can take off the mask and simply be.
As another birthday approaches, I am beginning to think that happiness is less about finding the perfect life and more about noticing the life we already have.
The morning air after rain.
A meal shared with people you love.
A good conversation.
A meaningful piece of work.
The courage to leave something that no longer serves you.
The freedom to begin again.
We spend so much of our lives asking, “What next?”
Perhaps every once in a while, we should ask a different question:
“What is already here?”
Because maybe happiness is not hiding somewhere ahead of us.
Maybe, like Esteri’s laughter, it has been sitting beside us all along.
We have simply been too busy chasing the next thing to hear it.
