What Is a Happy and Successful Life?
We all have formed our own definitions of what is being happy and successful right from childhood.
A lot of these perceptions are because of conditioning, i.e. they are a part of our habits due to repetitive reinforcement by our parents, teachers and society in general.
That is why none of us has actually pondered about what exactly makes us feel happy! This feeling has been left to our subconscious mind and we simply feel the happiness according to the situation we are in.
A lot of small things can give happiness and success to us. For instance, the thought of shopping or spending money may excite us and makes us feel happy.
Opportunities and new ideas also have a similar effect on us. This state of excitement makes us imagine things related to these incidents.
For example: the prospect of going on vacation while getting an office bonus may make us excited. It may also make us plan and imagine the holiday. In fact, we would feel the bliss without actually being on the vacation itself!
However, when being on the actual vacation, the excitement tends to settle down as one begins to feel contented.
The same with 'things.' We often go quite crazy and buy the latest phone, laptop, or new car. However, once we own it, the excitement settles down and it's appeal is lost.
We are always looking at ways of restarting the cycle of excitement by getting the next gadget, and the next, and the next!
Gadgets Won't Cut it!
Let's pause for a second here and seriously think about our domain of happiness.
Is it concerned with acquiring the latest objects only? Does it end in our wishes being fulfilled? Is our domain of happiness only limited to spending good time with family or friends?
We are so involved in this cycle of wishes that we actually forget to see what real happiness is and how it can be achieved.
That said, the definition and domain of happiness varies for every individual.
For some people, achieving a good career path provides happiness. For others, it is their fulfilment of goals and objectives; bringing happiness on the face of the deprived can give people happiness.
However, everybody doesn't have it easy in this world. Our income, education, family, environment, society and friends all affect our domain of happiness.
We might not always have the desired income needed to fulfil the wishes or may be our career isn't going as smooth as we had planned.
So what does it do to us? Does it burst our balloon of hope and excitement, or does it renew our hopes and make us clear our visions and set ahead for the future with new motivation?
How do you react when things don‟t turn out as you had planned? Most importantly, is your reaction appropriate, or do you need to change your attitude and perception?
This series of articles is all about "you" and how you can change dimensions in order to look ahead to a better future. The upcoming articles make up a complete guide to setting yourself in a new direction.
After all, success is all about having the right paradigm shift!
Next Article: Self Improvement Through Motivation