Happiness vs Loser

Like a scene from a bad romantic comedy I sit here with my laptop in a Starbucks decorated in bright red and silver for the holidays listening to the bustling businesspeople order their complex lattes and light holiday music and reading a letter from a friend for the umpteenth time. It is here, now, that I come to the realization that I am, in fact, clinically, by all legitimate definitions of the word, a loser.
It is unmistakable, the character traits of a loser; sitting alone, stupid nostalgic grin, watching life in the form of other happy people pass by. And I have come to find, upon looserish reflection, that what I am striving for—the converse of loser—is not coolness as conventional wisdom tells us, but rather happiness. Happy people are not losers. People may judge them as a loser, call them a loser, think they are a loser and treat them accordingly, but they are not. A loser, by Eisner-Webster dictionary, isn’t unhappiness but rather simply the inability to find happiness.
Happiness is a lot like the perfect outfit…or better yet, a simple shirt. You go to the store, Express for sake of argument, looking for a shirt. You have an idea in mind—blue, faded, made to look old and vintage—but you are still open to other ideas. You look and look and look but can’t seem to find that shirt. You can find a lot of shirts that look similar; that are on the right track. Maybe you buy one or two (or 6 or 7) but you eventually end up either returning them or never wearing them. They simply aren’t what you are looking for—though at this point you seem to have forgotten/never known what you were looking for in the first place.
It is only a few weeks later and you are taking you friend out to a mall to help them find a shirt they are looking for (a shirt that your “friend” always seems to find quickly). Inevitably it is now that you notice (while attempting to be happy for your “friend”) a storefront containing a yellow shirt. It looks brand new, not vintage at all. It is bright, not faded, and it is very modern looking. You have no idea what you would wear it with or what you would even do once you bought it but you realize all the same that that is what you were looking for. The antithesis of what you thought you wanted at a time when you weren’t even looking for it…and there it is. Sitting right in front of your face, right there in, you guessed it, Express.
How does this happen? Why does this happen? Why can’t we know we what we want—what will make us happy—and simply go get it. Why can’t we have what we want when we know we want it? What the hell?!
I don’t know. I never know. All I know is that this Starbucks is emptying out and I want a goddamn blue shirt! Or is it yellow? Aw, who the fuck knows.