happiness

The purpose of life is to find your life’s purpose

Happy Ramadhan, Eid Mubarak - عيد فطر مبارك“The purpose of life is to find your life’s purpose.”
 –How to Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynic’s Guide to Spiritual Happiness

 

I’m going to get a little philosophical on you in this post, because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what I want my New Year’s resolution to be, and reading on other blogs about how to make 2013 the time to radically change your life, take a big risk, and otherwise turn your life into something it isn’t.

That came out wrong. I don’t mean to say “something it isn’t” like you’d be faking it or trying to create a life that won’t be real and true for you. What I mean is, that all these posts are focusing on big, huge things to turn your life on its head and make an epic change (these blogs love to use words like “epic”), when maybe what some of us really need is just to be more happy with the life we’re living, right now.

It’s the journey

I love, love, love that quote above from How to Be Happy (which is a great little book full of creative pictures and short, sweet punches of inspiration). John Lennon said it another way in the song “Beautiful Boy”: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

I think too many of us, especially in the blogosphere, are focused on the changes we need to make us “happier.” And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. I’m actually a big fan of people who quit their jobs, lose 100 pounds, scale a mountain, or whatever other grand challenges they’ve set for themselves. I’m also a fan of people making little changes day by day to make their lives better.

But I also think, and really believe, that being happy isn’t a destination…something you reach after you make that one right decision or get that one big thing you’ve been hoping for. It’s about appreciating what we have and realizing that the journey of just being alive is the point of it all. We won’t ever find happiness at some point in the future, because our only chance to truly be happy is the moment we’re living now.

And maybe that’s what more of us should be focusing on in 2013. Finding happiness in the here and now, even if we’re also working to make things better in the future.

Because now is all we really have, anyway.

Just my two cents.

How can you learn to be more happy on the journey?

 

~Heart,

Em

—–

photo credit:  Hamed Saber

4 Comments

  • I am a very goal-oriented person with goal-oriented friends who reads goal-oriented blogs. So I think it’s funny that after years of planning big goals for the year ahead, so many people (including me) have decided to scale back – in a good way – in 2013. This doesn’t mean we can’t do great, ambitious things but we don’t feel the pressure of doing so. One of my friends and I realized that in our dogged pursuit of our goals, we stopped having very much FUN. So, we have a mutual goal of having more fun in 2013. 🙂

    I agree that gratitude is always a good attitude to cultivate; it is easy to get lost in the pursuit of a better life and forget everything that we have and the life we are living NOW!

    • “This doesn’t mean we can’t do great, ambitious things but we don’t feel the pressure of doing so.”

      Exactly! I love your goal of having more fun and living more in the moment…that’s one of my goals for 2013, too. Here’s to both of us achieving it!

  • Each of us definitely has a purpose in life and finding it can be a great journey in and of itself or it can be really frustrating for people and take a long time to figure out “what they are here to do.”

    Imagine a life purpose journey in a workbook that uses inspirational quotes from well know people and specially designed exercises to guide each person to their “7 Universal Life Purpose Elements.” Everyone has “Natal, Developmental, Psychological, Professional, Spiritual, Mystical and Transitional” parts that lead to their true purpose. A 45 page excerpt of 111 Inspirational Life Purpose Quotes and Exercises to Find Your Purpose in Life is available at http://www.yournextstepcoach.com/mm5/pdf/111-LifePurposeBookPreview.pdf or you can read more on amazon.com.

    Remember, all “life purpose” means is the aim or intention of the energy you put your energy towards…So where are YOU heading in 2013?

Leave a Comment