How to live a better life
Happiness is a direction, not a place.
- Sydney J. Harris
Where do you find happiness?
For far too long I’ve looked, occasionally finding it, but often lost in the perpetual search.
Like the song, Looking for love in all the wrong places, my search for happiness had me searching for a place, a thing, a possession, an object, a job that would make me happy. Once I found these things, my happiness slowely waned.
I’ve come to realize it was the journey, not the goal, that makes one happy. The wanting of something, and the search to get it can be more fulfilling than having it.
Too many people never search for happiness. They are trapped in the cycle of simple EXISTENCE. The same cycle I have been trapped in for so long.
Far, far, to long I simply went from work to home to work to home, completely missing the point of living: to LIVE. To EXPERIENCE.
I agree with tealtan at Walking Through Glass when he says “…it’s annoying to see people whose PENTULTIMATE GOAL IN LIFE is to lead “as normal a life as possible”.”
Normalcy is not living. Normal is that boring sidewalk that leads, not to where to want to go, but the path that convinces you: This is where you need to be.
To fight normality and find happiness requires you to step off that path. To politely ignore when your friends and family tell you to get back on the path like everyone else. It requires risk! For only those who take risks “… shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
- Carpe Diem - sieze the day. The only thing in life you can be absolutely certain of, is that it will end. Use this day to LIVE.
- Make a list those things you want to accomplish. Then start checking them off. Don’t be afraid to add to it or delete from it when needed, but always strive to have a list of accomplishments that you can look back on one day and say “This was my life”.
- Forget petty differences. You are who you are and so is the guy next to you. Forget the little things that set you apart from him. Hold out your hand, introduce yourself and learn his story. Build a friendship with a great many people.
- Do you have a purpose? If not, find it. (A topic for another post). Do that which you where meant to do.
- Live with the end in mind. No one wants to think about their final journey being a six foot drop in a wooden box. Instead of ignoring it, accept it. We each have only a limited number of hours. How many of them do you want to waste waiting for the end. USE THEM!
To LIFE!