How do i stop searching for happiness?

I got the pleasure of eating freshly caught crab and by the person that caught it earlier that morning. 
There's something joyful about eating with your hands and getting messy. Have you ever eaten crab?!

On one level, it makes me think about societal expectations tied to gender.

As an identified cis-gender woman, I noticed that we are not given the chance to be "messy". Messy as in with our manners or with our clothing. Or how we maintain the inside of our living rooms. Or whether we sweat at the gym. Maybe these are just things that we do, regardless of our gender. Can we just throw all those expectations out the window?! 

And  if you  do  any of these  things, there's  no  shame  in  it!!

It doesn't take away from your femininity or your masculinity. We get to define how we view ourselves. We get to decide how we present ourselves. But I also want to acknowledge that it's not an easy process. It takes courage to own all of you, the parts of you that you love, the parts that annoy you or the parts that you're tempted to change. It's also a process. It's not a quick fix. It can be frustrating and painful, especially if we haven't come to terms with the parts that we're less fond of or would like to change.

But it has also made me question why we don't give ourselves permission to be "messy"? ​​

There seem to be a lot of negative connotations associated with the word "messy". ​So I'd love to invite you to give yourself to be "messy".
To experience your emotions. To be sad and frustrated and content all at the same time. Sometimes our emotional experiences don't make sense.
It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you; it just means that you're a person with a beating heart.When we experience extreme sadness, it leaves us with the space to feel joy. We are not only more likely to appreciate the experience of joy because we've felt something on the opposite end of the spectrum, but also because we've felt everything else in between-- frustration, guilt, anger, or anxiety. From my own experience, I've found that it's not about striving for that state of happiness, but rather it's an emotion that we experience on a continuum.