Monday 2 April 2012

Define Your Happiness

What are your goals in life?


The astute amongst us can reel off an impressive list of very tangible experiences, targets and milestones whilst those less focussed or even well versed will often give a hazier yet equally fulfilling run down. However, the thinker will only ever cite "being happy" as their real life goal.


The great benefit of voicing this option is it has all the qualities of a satisfactory answer yet its inherent vagueness leaves the possibility of all outcomes as well as exempts the protagonist from having to think deeper....the ultimate "get out of jail free card".


Truth be told, nobody really knows what the word happiness means, primarily because it means different things to different people. A lack of definition in life is often a good enough reason for one to switch off, ignore or in some cases freak out.


However, if we accept the above to be true, how can we be sure that we are not "happy" already? Maybe you have reached a point of contentment in your life time that people typically only ever associate with the hereafter or at best in old age. Man ignorantly needs tangible metrics by which to define, it is not his fault..after all he was once an ape, and so he turns to the classics:


- wealth
- health
- integrity


Again in his ignorance, man sleeps easy at night because he has already gone beyond the call of duty and "thought" this much without realising that he really hasn't "thought" at all.


STOP and PAUSE.


What do you define as wealth? Enough to meet your needs, put your kids through school and occasionally satisfy extravagance? - Are you sure you don't already have that? 


What is health? Good enough health for you to not have any life threatening illness so you can fulfil all of your undefined  goals? - How long do you want to live for exactly? Are you being fair to nature here?


Once you have had the opportunity to PAUSE for just a minute you will realise the importance to DEFINE your happiness...give it a figure, give it a time frame. Without these important metrics you are destined to lead a life of unhappiness or worst still depression; but most importantly you are missing out on the opportunity to be thankful.
We discussed earlier that lack of definition in anything often puts us off and more understandably scares us...so why do we fall short on our core aspirations?


Pause, calculate and define....now question; are you sure you're not happy?





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