What’s It Going to Take to Make You Happy?
I've been thinking near this question a lot lately. What does it accept to be a happy person? Obviously the respond is going to exist dissimilar for each person, but what worries me is that, equally far as I can tell, most people don't fifty-fifty ask – and those that practise don't have a very good respond.
Inquire someone what would brand them happy, and their answer is probable to be pretty vague. "A good career"," they might say. Or, "Family unit." "A strong relationship with my partner," they might add afterwards a moment's reflection.
There's null wrong with these things, of course, but at that place'south non much meat to them as answers. They don't give u.s. much to chew on – which is to say, they're not really actionable.
And I think that'south because we don't give much idea to the question. Mayhap we're a little suspicious of the very concept of "existence happy". After all, our grandparents/parents/[insert fabulous ancestors here] came to this country with nothing and scraped and toiled to build a improve life for themselves – they didn't sit around thinking almost whether or not they were happy. They were miserable and they liked it!
That'south the American Way, right? More and more, it'south the Modernistic Mode, inappreciably bound to the U.s.a. borders. Work hard, hunker down, tighten your chugalug, and brand a better life.
There'south no dignity in happiness, not in this worldview anyway. Happiness is frivolous, fleeting, ephemeral. Dignity is constitute in the grave and serious, not the frolicking and joyful.
There's another reason I think we aren't willing to face up the question of what makes us happy: nosotros're afraid that the respond volition prove to be something out of our grasp. Perhaps you need a million dollars to be happy, and you lot only have $three.62. Maybe y'all need a amend job than yous're capable of holding, or a bigger house than you lot tin beget, or a prettier wife or more handsome husband, or better-behaved children. Maybe you need to exist smarter, better-looking, more approachable, taller, healthier, more disciplined, thinner… someone else.
I don't buy it. In that location are unhappy people in all walks of life. If it were brains, there wouldn't be unhappy smart people – and there are. If it were coin, at that place wouldn't exist unhappy rich people – and boy are there! If it were looks, there wouldn't be unhappy cute people – and Marilyn Monroe wouldn't have taken her own life.
And vice versa – there are unhappy impaired people, poor people, and ugly people as well. Just as there are happy rich people, happy poor people, happy dumb people, happy smart people, happy beautiful people, happy ugly people – happy people of every stripe.
What makes them so special?
I think the answer has to be self-noesis – facing the question of what it will take to be happy head on. It's patently not something external to us that "makes" usa happy; we make our ain happiness. Merely it's not so simple equally just deciding to exist happy. We make our happiness by determining what it will take, co-ordinate to our own individual taste and character, to be happy, and chasing later those things and but those things.
Perhaps you need to be rich to be happy – that'southward the kind of person yous are. Or peradventure you lot just need to be comfortable, to not take to worry. Or, quite possibly, you lot demand the edge of poverty to come up really live – stranger things have happened! You can't know if you're non willing – or not able – to face yourself and figure out what money means to you. Non whether rich people are shallow or profound, whether poor people are lazy or victimized past a social system that needs poverty to secure cheap labor – but what money means to y'all.
Or possibly you need a different job. Merely what job? Maybe you lot need to move – but to where? Maybe you demand to get healthier – but how? In what fashion?
The trick here is to movement across empty platitudes and hollow stereotypes and really look at our ain lives. That's where happiness starts to take root.
Y our assignment – and mine, too – is to figure all this out, to sit down with a pad and paper and start writing out our answer to the question: what's it going to take to make me happy? Be specific – what exactly do yous desire from life? How is each affair on your listing supposed to help you create happiness in your life? Virtually of import, are y'all certain these are your answers, and not club's, non your friends', non your parents'? Information technology's then easy to internalize everyone else's talk about what makes people happy – but the proof's in the pudding: are they happy? If non, what are yous doing listening to them.
Sit down down, write your list, and tuck information technology abroad somewhere prophylactic. Then get out and practise the things on your list, and allow me know how that works out for you. Let'due south encounter if we tin can't all effigy this out for ourselves, ok?
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/whats-it-going-to-take-to-make-you-happy.html
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