What Makes Us Happy?
We all want to be happy and we usually have things that we want to accomplish in our lives that we think will achieve that happiness. But have you really stopped for a minute to define what truly makes you content?
Positive psychology encourages focusing on what is good in your life rather than on the negative. It identifies twenty characteristics that help maintain that positive outlook, which in turn, keeps people content. A few of those are the ability to love and be loved, spirituality, altruism and creativity. Positive psychology is based in the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within them, and to enhance their experiences.
Happiness isn’t something you can hunt, capture and hang on your wall. Chasing happiness and trying to constantly measure it has surprisingly, the opposite effect. In contrast, working towards a meaningful life, by identifying a cause that helps others has been proven by research to increase overall happiness and lead to finding a lasting satisfaction in life.
We want to believe that our lives have a built-in purpose. We feel that our existence serves a greater purpose, and therefore our lives have an inherent meaning but that doesn’t really exist. We need to proactively seek our own life’s meaning.
Instead of being proactive about seeking for a meaning for our life, we ignore or delay this task and fail to complete it. The majority of us live a purposeless life without a direction and looking in so many different directions that it often leads to a feeling of despair.
Most people just try to do the best they can with whatever comes their way rather than finding their purpose and focusing their energy on achieving it. Trying to be successful or powerful or wealthy doesn’t give your life a true meaning. Focusing on these superficial goals will, most likely, result in being less content in the end.
We are taught from an early age that we should study hard, get good grades so we can go to college and get a good job. Then we can buy a big house, get married, have kids and buy a nice car. We should work until we are 65 so we can finally retire and then we will be happy.
The problem with that old adage is that it doesn’t make sense to spend all your life doing something you hate for the promise of a better life when you’re too old to enjoy life!. Unfortunately, 70% of people hate their job and it takes them too long to realize that they should be finding their purpose earlier in life so they can spend their life in a state of happiness instead of anticipation. . We find ourselves in a never-ending cycle of working harder to gain more material things that don’t fulfill the purpose that we so desperately desire. Our programming as a child growing up, while meant with the best intentions, isn’t providing us with our most basic need and that is a purpose in our life.
Spending our life chasing the corporate meaning of success may give us the riches that we feel we need to feel content, but in reality it causes a lot of stress and guilt and for some can lead to anxiety disorders.
Do you really believe that when you’ll be lying on your deathbed you’ll be happier knowing that you achieved wealth? Probably not. Most people surveyed on their deathbed expressed regret that they haven’t prioritized their time for the important things in life such as spending time with family and friends.
Achieving “things” in our life give us a brief “high”. But just like with drugs that “high” doesn’t last long and you’ll soon be looking for the next “fix”. This means we are constantly chasing after something that doesn’t really fulfill us, so we keep seeking after bigger “things” to get a higher “high”. It’s a vicious cycle that never ends but leaves you exhausted and unhappy.
What we want to do is find something that can sustain us – and that “something” is finding a purpose. Usually it will be in the form of a cause that we can work towards. It doesn’t have to be something large, it can be something small that only helps one person maybe, but the feeling that we did something that benefits another living being gives us the sustainable feeling of happiness because we made a difference.
We should be enjoying the process of choosing what we can do and not focus solely on the outcome. Learning to love and enjoy the day to day work of getting to a goal makes our everyday life a joy takes us out of the vicious cycle.
What will you do to give yourself a sustainable feeling of happiness?
Ranan Lachman
Purchase the book Purpose – How Little Things Can Create A Meaningful Life
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Happiness, Life Purpose, Meaning, Motivation, Personal Growth, Recovery, Transformation
