What is Really Going To Make You Happy?

Happiness is a weird concept.

How you find it.

How you keep it around as much as possible.

What you find it in.

All different for everyone.

Everyone is searching for happiness and finding it in their own ways. We all want to be happy, fulfilled, and purposeful. At the end of the day, happiness is the motivation behind most things. Hell, take McDonalds for example... their entire sales pitch is based on the fact that they sell happiness.

So, this begs the question...

What is going to make you happy?

Notice I am not asking what makes you happy. I am asking what is going to make you happy.

There is a difference.

I ask what is going to make you happy because I think we often forget to look at happiness in the long term. Happiness is an addicting feeling, and we often want it as fast and as often as possible.

For example, if you asked me right now if eating a whole box of donuts would make me happy, I would say hell yes. Although will it make me happy in the long term? Probably not when I am dying during my workout, and I am not hitting my physical goals.

(I still struggle with food more than anything else HA)

So, this is why I ask, "what is GOING to make you happy". Think about it.

Recently I have been all over the place with my life plans. I feel now I am in a good place and am excited for the path I have chosen, but it is a very uncertain path.

Due to my very uncertain style of life, I had someone very close to me ask me a question that made me think.

She asked me, "don't you like certainty? Don't you like knowing you will be paid each day you work and that you have a job that you know and enjoy going into that you can learn and grown in but is always there?" She then said she enjoys that and that she loves the fact that she can know her and her children are always secure and taken care of.

She is one of the most amazing workers I have ever met, and I know for a fact no one loves their job more than she does. This makes her happy.

When she asked me this, I thought yeah that would be nice and would make me happy.... but only for a moment.

Maybe a longer moment than eating a whole box of donuts... but only a moment all the same.

It turns out I was extremely fortunate to have a job that did just that for me right out of college. I was safe secure, and it was a job most people would do until retirement. I had benefits, insurance, and guaranteed work. By all means, I was set for a very happy and comfortable life. For many people this is happy, this is exactly what many of us want and even I do too.

I am not saying I don't love having a job that I can go do well in and know is reliable. I am saying, I want that but not in my own way.

I think people forget there are multiple ways to get to the same destination.

I want stability, confidence, and safety in the fact that I can provide for myself and my children just like everyone else does. But do I want it by being a respiratory therapist for the rest of my life?

Nope.

I would much rather be unstable, risk it all, and have no idea what I am going to do next with the faith that as long as I do something it will be okay.

Oddly enough, I would rather be scared shitless and have faith that I will create my version of happiness than be comfortable and secure doing something that I wasn't placed on this earth to do.

Risk and uncertainty get me fired up, and even though it might really ruin my life if I don't play my cards right, it might just do the opposite as well. I want to create the life I imagine for myself... I want everything you all want I promise... I just know I can't quite have it yet. I know I would never be happy taking it all right now. I need to have patients.... I need to focus on what is GOING to make me happy. Not what makes me happy right now.

Do you need this too? Ask yourself... will this make me happy now and later? Will this build towards the images I have for myself in my mind?

I am not saying anyone is wrong for being happy with a job that is reliable. I think having a job you love is the ultimate goal, right? I am jealous of everyone who has found this in their life. If you have, and you are happy, congratulations you have proven to everyone else it is possible and now you are a role model to people like me.

So, let’s say you have your life calling figured out... is that the only thing in life that affects your happiness? Take this concept and apply it elsewhere. Think about your relationships, your experiences, your finances any other bucket of life. This will apply.

Ask yourself, what is going to make me happy now AND in the future. See if this changes the way you look at your life at all.

LAWS CO