The Three Grand Essentials of Life
I would say that nine days out of ten, I am a very happy person, but that tenth day is no picnic. Every time I begin to feel my life sliding in the wrong direction, I stop to take inventory of what is happening in my world. Am I feeling good about life? About myself? And if not, then why not?
Over the years I have paid close attention to when I wasn’t feeling my best, and I have also paid close attention to the people around me who seem happy and content. In trying to emulate the satisfied people around me, and I have found that genuine happiness is dependent on three things:
Something to pursue. Something to do on a daily basis that requires you to get up, get dressed and work towards accomplishing a task.
Something to love, whether that be a person, object, a hobby, or something else.
Something to hope for, like a better life, a romantic relationship, or a new experience.
When you are missing one of those key elements, life becomes imbalanced.
It is important to understand that one thing does not have to hit all three essentials. For me, hope and pursuit come with new business ventures. Building something new and valuable exhilarates me, and the pursuit of success is just as important as the hope of a good payout. Times of imbalance in my past have often arisen when I was between ventures, and resting on my laurels so to speak. I need to keep busy to keep content.
Something that I love, like hope and pursuit, can also come in many forms. For me, it is my family, and altruism. When I can offer the best pieces of myself to the people I love and to the cause of making someone’s life better, then I am happy.
When I am lacking one of those three essentials, then every instance of negativity in my life becomes magnified. I find myself over-reacting to small inconveniences, and that is my cue to self-correct.
Another key element to understanding these three essentials is. When you can appreciate the things you have, instead of focusing on the things you do not, then life becomes infinitely better.
It is important to focus on the positive aspects of those three grand aspects; something to pursue, something to love, and something to hope for. That is when life feels blessed.