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How Life Feels
I used to think of happiness as something distant, vague, hard to reach — as if it were a goal I had to achieve in the future: “Once I become more successful, lose weight, earn more, move away, find the right thing — then I’ll be happy.” Not as something I could actually feel now, live through every day — in simple sensations and impressions.
But happiness doesn’t come through achievement — it comes through perception. I truly noticed it for the first time in Istanbul — but it wasn’t about the city. It was about the senses.
Happiness for All the Senses
When I first arrived in Istanbul, I felt like I was in an extraordinary place. Maybe it was all the associations I had with it — Turkish TV series, Tarkan’s songs, the history of the Ottoman Empire, and the atmosphere of One Thousand and One Nights. But I don’t think that was the reason.
You just step out into the street in this beautiful, ancient city, breathe in the air — filled with sea, spices, pastry — and you already feel good. Then you take a ferry ride across the Bosphorus — gulls, a soft breeze, mosque domes rising in the distance. Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, quiet courtyards, tiles, and that blue amulet in the shape of an eye, everywhere. But Istanbul isn’t just a treat for the eyes. There are fragrant flowers planted all over the city, rose water, the smell of street food, the scent of fresh simit — it’s an aromatic paradise. And the taste? Honey-soaked baklava with pistachios, strong tea in a beautiful glass, the perfect Turkish breakfast on a rooftop, lahmacun with ayran. Sounds bring their own kind of joy too — seagulls crying out, the horn of the ferry, the call to prayer echoing across the city, the sound of waves in the Bosphorus. And touch has its place too — rough ceramic tiles in a hammam, the thin tea glass warming your fingers, the soft fur of a street cat rubbing against your leg — and you feel like you’ve entered another dimension.
I didn’t question anything at the time. I just enjoyed it. The realization came later, once the details faded: Happiness isn’t so much a result as it is a side effect of attention. When you stop chasing and start noticing — it comes on its own, through scent, taste, sound, light, touch.
