One of the stark truths of life is that we are all responsible for our own happiness. Naturally, there are psychological preconditions and lifestyle factors that can have a bearing on whether an individual develops a mental illness or chronic unhappiness, but it is largely in our own hands. There are three simple mind-sets that you can adopt to ensure your happiness, as well as a newly-discovered psychological phenomenon to be aware of:
1. Stop the rat race
Many people have the tendency to work themselves to the bone in order to accomplish the things they desire, but life isn’t just about that. It’s about experiencing and living. Although we may try to make predictions about the things we expect to happen to us at various stages of our lives, many of us find that they don’t come to fruition as planned.
The universe has bigger and better plans for us that can potentially become great moments and experiences. You need to stop telling yourself that you’re too old to do certain things, because in addition to being foolish, doing so can also hinder your progress.
Think of life as a measurement of happiness, experiences, and relationships as opposed to a measure of time. You can apply this practically to your life by refraining from comparing yourself to friends that have already achieved their career goals while you are still left wanting. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, take a good look at your life and count your blessings to see how much you really have to live for.
If your life circumstances are having a negative impact on you, you should first realize that no-one else is to blame for your current state of affairs. Take control of your destiny and allow life’s journey to evolve and unravel before your very eyes. You need to keep believing that you will eventually get to where you think you need to be.
There are four important questions that you should ask yourself in life:
1. Do I have my family?
2. Do I have good health?
3. Do I have food to eat?
4. Do I have shelter?
These are the only things that really matter. You would really have a problem if any of these things came into question. Everything else is secondary.
3. Do what you love
It’s often the case in life that the very biggest clichés are the ones that contain the most truth. You should try to see if doing what you love can become a career for you, but if it isn’t something that’s going to allow you to support yourself, take it up as a hobby.
You must commit to indulging and nurturing your passion. For instance, you should play your instrument regardless of whether anyone is watching. Don’t stop writing just because you haven’t yet become a best-selling author.
Life is too short for you to deny yourself from enjoying your passion. Although some of us are fortunate enough to do what we love as a job, the reality is that most of us have a lifetime of work to contend with. Stop making excuses to put off doing what you love and just do it.
Furthering the above, you should never stop yourself from doing what you enjoy because of societal constraints that might forbid it. Life is what you make it, so forget about any requirements for conformity or acceptability foisted upon you by others.
4. Be aware of “time famine”
The demands placed upon us all by the modern world have left many of us feeling that there are never enough hours in the day to get things done, and this can cause a lot of psychological stress. In fact, researchers are now calling this phenomenon “time famine”.
The researchers, who hail from the USA, Canada, and the Netherlands respectively, decided to see if they could determine whether there’s more to time famine than meets the eye. They also wanted to establish whether it could be relieved with money.
Some 6,000 adults in the researchers’ countries were asked about how much money they spent on “buying time”. This includes things such as hiring help around the house or purchasing lunches rather than making them.
When the results came back, they showed that less than a third of the adults polled said that they “bought time” during the previous month. The ones that did, appeared to be more satisfied than the ones that didn’t.
Taking their study a step further, the researchers then asked the polled adults to spend $30 on a time-saving purchase such as buying lunch or hiring a cleaning service and spend their windfall on material goods such as clothes or games.
They determined conclusively that buying time for yourself is much more conducive to happiness than buying material things. All in all, the biggest thing to take from this study is to realize that moments lived are far more precious than tangible things ever could be.
Images by Deposit Photos.
