Most people believe they were put on Earth for a purpose, that their lives have meaning, and that being human is a matter of finding that purpose. This skewed belief creates a major blind-spot about their freedom and who they truly are, which I feel is the major cause of their unhappiness.
Why? Because it conceals the reality that they have the sole responsibility for creating the meaning of their lives by how they choose to live.
For example, you can choose to be happy, which is a more valuable way of existing than being unhappy. This assertion, then, becomes the meaning of your life.
In contrast, let’s say you believe the common cultural assumption that to be happy you must have a well-paid stressful job, and you value wealth instead of happiness. You’re asserting that your choice to pursue money is a more valuable way of being a human being than other possibilities – including being happy. Money and the associated actions of acquiring it, such as hoarding and spending it, therefore becomes the meaning of your life.
Now let’s take this further into the workplace:
Imagine that you have a choice between two jobs. You like both occupations, but the first one will make you happier because the work is rewarding and fits your values of making a difference in the world. While the second will make you more money and has more prestige.
In making this choice you have chosen to value money and prestige over being happy. You have also chosen the type of person you’re going to be; that is, the type of person for whom money and prestige is more valuable than happiness.
The point of this article is not to persuade you to choose money over happiness, but to distinguish that you have a relatively short time in this world and the type of choices you make do matter.
The key to living an authentic happy life requires making choices that inherently require taking a risk to create possibilities at the expense of others. It’s in your hands.
“This is the true joy in life, the being recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.” “I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” ~George Bernard Shaw