About ten years ago my wife asked me a question that completely stunned me and surprisingly caused anger to rise up inside of me. That same question has repeated in my head over and over ever since. The question was "Paul, are you happy?"
On face value, that is a harmless question and I know that my wife was really sincere in asking it. My response was really more of a reaction as I barked back at her by saying "what kind of question is that?" Following on from that I uttered "what has happiness got to do with anything?" I was taken aback by not only my words but the emotion embedded in those words.
I know that happiness means different things to different people. However, essentially there are two kinds of happiness.
One kind can be termed "body" happiness which can be bought and sold and is directed toward satisfying the five physical senses.
The other kind goes to the inner world of the person and can be termed "mind" happiness. Someone who experiences this kind of happiness may have feelings of value, meaning and significance. This kind of experience enables the person to feel like they are "at the right place at the right time doing exactly what I was born to do".
After my wife asked me "Paul, are you happy?" I knew she was talking about mind happiness. As I reflected on the question during the days that followed I realized that I had been conditioned all my life since I was a kid to work hard and fulfil my responsibility. In the process I had denied myself of the right to be happy.
My view was that if happiness came to me as a byproduct of me fulfilling my responsibility, that was simply my good fortune.
As I thought more about it, I concluded that it is my responsibility in life to be very happy. Without a doubt no one really enjoys being around depressed people or people that fail to exude any passion or joy.
You, my friend, owe it to yourself, your loved ones and those around you to be DEEPLY happy every day.
Henry Thoreau, the author, once wrote: "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still inside them".
How about you? Are you just going through the motions everyday in a state of quiet desperation or is the song coming out of you? In other words, are you passionate about the moment by moment events in your daily life?
More Information:
Paul Saver has been acoach of Personal Development for the past three decades. Go to
paulsaver.com to get your FREE copy of "Your Guide To Discovering Your Own Unique Life Purpose" Then while you are visiting his blog, go to his blog post titled
21 Questions To Release Your Passion By doing so, you can come to resonate with your life purpose and come to enjoy what you do every single day of your life.
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