Always Strive For Happiness

DISCLAIMER : Sorry! This is not a blog post on being an expat, being in Geneva, or our travels, just a blog post because I have been doing A LOT of thinking lately. This may not be the most eloquent blog post ever, or the most interesting, but it may be the most helpful to organize my state of mind and collect my thoughts. Skip it if you must, this is a brain dump.

Always Strive For Happiness

One thing that this experience has taught me if that I should always strive for happiness. Many factors contribute to happiness and when one piece is much lower then the others, the whole things starts to feel out of balance. For Rob and I, it is important to us that we continually work on every single piece.

The biggest single factor for happiness is reducing stress. Stress can be caused by one or many of the pieces not going the way you want it to.

Categories of stress factors:

- Health
- Career & Fulfillment of a purpose
- Love
- Security & Education
- Collective Human Issues

HEALTH - Everyday we make choices on how to live. Balancing healthy options with not so healthy options. Eating french fries increases my happiness of mind because I enjoy them, but it doesn't contribute to the well being of my body. Doing cardio decreases my happiness of mind because I dislike it, but it does contribute to the well being of my body. Both are essential to the delicate balance of happiness in health.

CAREER and FULFILLMENT - This is an area that Rob and I have been having a lot of discussion in. This area is ready for some change and needs work. What we have been doing is making us unhappier. We must be able to adapt to changing times (the recession) and find opportunities when they arise. Possibilities are endless. Can't let other's opinions effect our happiness. We must strive to not hurt anyone else's happiness but not be afraid to break expectations.

LOVE - Finding one's true love and eliminating loneliness -check. Got that one down pat. Everyday putting a little bit more into it, and keeping it alive is so important. Not having happiness in this area can lead to problems in other areas. (i.e. Health and Security) Eventually love and fulfillment will co-mingle when children come into the picture. Eventually being the key word. Not anytime soon.

SECURITY & EDUCATION - The fear of the unknown is a human trait. We as humans strive to connect the dots and find ways to survive the hard things in life. It is a trait humans have acquired thru evolution and natural selection. Humans who connected the dots survived longer. Trying to secure our lives is a way to combat the fear of the unknown. Always preparing for the future (but not forgetting to live in the moment) is a delicate balance. Security can only come from education on how the world works. Education is a continually and adaptive process. We learn from so many resources and draw our own conclusions. This section can go on and on and on. . .

COLLECTIVE HUMAN ISSUES - These are issues that effect our society/civilization as whole. As an individual working alone on such issues, no real progress is easily made. Large groups of people can have large effects and hopefully those effects work towards a greater good. Some of my goals in life is to make sure I am working to improve the world around me. I don't care if it is such a small contribution, what I do care is that it gets done. I want to be kind to others. The stress in this area comes from the suffering of others. I tend not to stress out in this area too much since I am just one person and I am doing what I can.

Now that I have outlined a plan to happiness (for me), I better start working on it!