Is That More to Life Than Being Happy?
I search for the keywords, happiness. I ended up, here:
There’s More to Life Than Being Happy
by Emily Esfahani Smith
Chasing happiness can make people unhappy.
Even though life is getting objectively better by nearly every conceivable standard, more people feel hopeless, depressed and alone. There’s an emptiness gnawing away at people, and you don’t have to be clinically depressed to feel it.
And according to the research, what predicts this despair is not a lack of happiness. It’s a lack of something else, a lack of having meaning in life. Studies show that people who have meaning in life, they’re more resilient, they do better in school and at work, and they even live longer.
So, what’s the difference between being happy and having meaning in life? And how can we each live more meaningfully?
Four pillars of a meaningful life.
(We can each create lives of meaning by building some or all of the pillars in our lives.)
1. Belonging comes from being in a relationships where you’re valued for who you are intrinsically and where you value others as well. True belonging springs from love. Sometimes we reject people in small ways without realizing it. For example: we walk by someone we know and barely acknowledge them or check our phone when someone’s talking to us. These acts devalue others. They make them feel invisible and unworthy.
But when you lead with love, you create a bond that lifts each of you up.
2. Purpose is less about what you want than about what you give. The key to purpose is using your strengths to serve others. Purpose gives you something to live for, some “why” that drives you forward.
3. Transcendent states are those rare moments when you’re lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life, your sense of self fades away, and you feel connected to a higher reality.
4. Storytelling. The story you tell yourself about yourself. Creating a narrative from the events of your life brings clarity. It helps you understand how you became you. But we don’t always realize that we’re the authors of our stories and can change the way we’re telling them. Your life isn’t just a list of events. You can edit, interpret and retell your story, even as you’re constrained by the facts. People who tell stories like this — “My life was good. Now it’s bad.” — tend to be more anxious and depressed. How people change their stories? by reflecting on your life thoughtfully, how your defining experiences shaped you, what you lost, what you gained. You won’t change your story overnight; it could take years and be painful. After all, we’ve all suffered, and we all struggle. But embracing those painful memories can lead to new insights and wisdom, to finding that good that sustains you.
Happiness comes and goes. But when life is really good and when things are really bad, having meaning gives you something to hold on to.
This episode somehow gave me closure about not to search for “how to be happy in life” or as simple as I googled, “what is happiness” because I’ve had those bad times when I feel like I can’t feel happy.
I’ve become so obsessed with the feeling of happiness (but aren’t we all?) but then I realized, there’s more to life than being happy. Is not about chasing happiness, it’s not it. It’s about having meaning in life. Have you found it, yet?
