10 Truths That Will Improve Your Life Once You Accept Them
6. ‘Happiness is a journey, not a destination.’
Throughout our lives, there are many things that we perceive to be true, but very few that actually are true. I may choose to believe that there is another person out there exactly the same as me. Yet, the science of genetics tells me something different.
The search for truth is a uniquely human experience. Animals are happy to live in the moment and go with the flow. Whereas, we look to the stars, ponder how they move, how far away they are and our own role in this cosmic dance.
Truth is a word that can get overused in today’s world. The implication being that many people are not truthful. What I am concerned within this article is not whether someone was telling the truth or not, but universal truths that underpin our existence.
I want to explore and expand on some facts of life that apply to all of us. They may apply differently depending on where you live, how wealthy you are, or what job you held, but they apply nonetheless.
It’s important to reflect on these point from time to time. Going through life with blinkers on is a surefire recipe to get stuck and bemoan your lot later on when you’re older and things remain the same.
You can pretend these truths don’t exist, but the more you do, the more you’ll time you’ll waste battling against the tide when you could be working on yourself instead.
Your health is everything
If living through a pandemic has taught me anything it’s that looking after your body should be one of your top priorities. Health is important.
We underestimate how vital our life is until it’s too late. I have missed going to the gym during lockdown. While I have a set of weights at home, it’s not the same as having access to a gym. It’s easier to be lazy when you’re at home, especially when there is a deadly virus going around!
When you’re healthy and in good shape, you can do so much, without it, you’ll yearn for the days when you did. You either make your health a priority or it becomes a priority.
You only control your response
Most of what we see in the world is outside of your control. There is very little that we can control. I can’t control what politicians say or do, but I can control how I respond.
Many of the problems that we suffer from are due to our desire to control stuff. Instead of yearning to control everything, we should embrace the fact that we control very little.
When you realise that there is little that you can bring under your control, you’ll start to become happier. You’ll feel less weighed down and drained as a result.
I can choose to be outraged or I can channel my concern in a more meaningful manner. Your quality of life will be much better once you adopt this philosophy.
Life is short
I’m 30, it feels like I’ve been alive for ages. I hope to live for a while yet. But as the years pass faster and faster, I realise that life is short. My 20s went by in a blur. I did more in those years than I ever thought I would.
I lived in three different countries, travelled to other forty, set up a blog that has become my full-time job and worked in a variety of industries. I’ve crammed more into those ten years than some people do in a lifetime!
The older I’ve got and the faster the years go by, the more I realise how short life is. The trick that life plays on you is it’s long enough to make you think it will last forever but short enough to leave you wishing you had more time.
That’s why you must seize the day and do what you want today. No better time exists than now. The future is not guaranteed and things can and will change, as we’ve seen with the Coronavirus.
When you’re old, you don’t want to look back at your life with regret. Life your in the knowledge that it will come to an end one day and you’ll have a much more fulfilling life.
There’s no one definition of success
For some success, some people is a big house, a fancy car and a beautiful wife. For others, it’s a lifetime of work on an issue that is close to their heart. We may hold up the likes of Bill Gates and Elon Musk as successes, and they are.
But, many unheralded people have been just as successful in their own right. The accumulation of wealth and material goods is not the only definition of success.
Being successful comes in many different forms and means something to one person and something else to another. Do not be defined by someone’s else definition of success. Figure out what it means for you and go after it.
Some of the most successful people on the planet are those we haven’t heard of. Just because they don’t have millions in the bank or hundreds of thousands of followers on social media doesn’t mean their failures.
Decide what’s important to you and strive to become a success at it. Life is a competition not with others, but yourself. Once you separate yourself from the rat race, you’ll be much happier.
Differences are what make life interesting
In a world that is more polarised than ever, it seems like different is bad. Yet it’s these differences that make worth living and interesting. Without them, it would be a bland place.
Imagine if everyone thought the same, looked the same, talked the same. What a boring world it would be. Just imagining that everyone thought the same way as me and had the same tastes makes me shiver.
This is one of the things that travelling has hammered home to me, no matter how superior someone thinks their country or culture is, it’s not. Living in Australia, I felt like they had the work-life balance right compared to the UK. But I missed the banter and camaraderie you get there.
Each place and people have their pros and cons. That’s what makes great. It’s a petri dish of different people, cultures and languages. Trying to homogenise them all and declare one better than the other misses the point.
We are enriched by our contact with each other. It’s these differences that lead to innovation as we all learn from each other. Variety is the spice of life.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination
I used to think that I’d end up happy one day as a result of my actions. It was only after doing multiple road trips that I realised I enjoyed the journey more than the destination.
The same applies to happiness, it’s the journey that makes you happy. If you develop hobbies and endeavours that you enjoy, you’ll find yourself happier than you would when you arrive at one fixed point.
The paradox of this situation is that chasing happiness will lead you to become unhappier. It’s a mistake to think you’ll reach a fixed point in the future and you’ll be happy once you get there.
Happiness is a process. You’re not going to wake up one day and suddenly become happy. It will happen as the result of a buildup of tiny decisions that snowball over time.
Stop chasing happiness and eventually, it will come to you.
You’re constantly evolving
People change, for worse or for better as they get older. It’s a fact of life. If you’re still the same person you were when you left high school, you’ve stagnated.
Five years ago, I moved to Barcelona to teach English. Back then, I spoke no Spanish and had little idea about the country or language. After a few weeks in the city, I realised that punctuality was not commonplace.
Being English, I hate being late for anything. The thought of showing up a minute or two late for anything makes me nervous. Yet, here I was in a country where it seemed like everyone operated to their own time.
As the year wore on, I found myself adopting the same habits. I was less inclined to worry about being late. I was more liberal in getting to somewhere on time. Even now, I don’t have this need to be on time all the time.
It’s just one example of how I’ve changed over the years. We don’t realise but we are changing all the time. Reading more books has helped me developed my thinking and influenced the way I live.
The problem is if you’re not evolving. If you’re still stuck with the same thought pattern you had years ago, if you haven’t pushed yourself out of your comfort zone, your life is going to stagnate.
It’s important to prioritise learning and development. Humans are not designed to remain the same forever, we’re designed to evolve and better ourselves.
You are unique
There will never be another person like you, ever. I find that an amazing thought. This gives you the chance to offer your opinion on how you see the world.
It’s easy to think that all the most important insights in life have already been made, but that’s a fallacy. Imagine if Charles Darwin had not questioned what he saw during his voyages on HMS Beagle. Or if Albert Einstein didn’t query the intuitions he had about physics.
Just because it looks like there is nothing new to add doesn’t mean there is. The history of humanity shows that ideas come and go, replaced by new ones as time goes on.
This is where you come in. Whatever your thoughts, they may not seem like much, but to others, they could be a revelation. They could help someone the world in a different way.
Everyone has something to offer, everyone has an insight that could prove beneficial. Use your uniqueness to your advantage. Embrace it.
Most people don’t know you exist
This is a humbling thought. Unless you’re super famous, the majority of people alive today and those in the future don’t you exist or existed.
While this sounds morbid, the opposite is true. It grounds and humbles us, we realise that we are not the centre of the universe, even if some of us think we are.
With seven billion people on the planet, unless you’re a megastar, you’re going to be an obscure figure. But does this matter? If you have the love of your close friends and family, do you need the recognition of others?
We can all get a little high and mighty at times, but it’s vital to remember that sometimes you can get high on your self-importance. Many people in the past will have done the same, how many of their lives are we familiar with today?
One day we will be forgotten, as our memory fades out of view. Realising that we are but one chain in the link of humanity will keep our feet on the ground and stop us from delusions of grandeur that can happen to any of us.
Life is great
Despite all the issues in the world, we are blessed to be alive. We live in a beautiful world with a lot of beautiful people. The trees, the sea, the air, the sky all of this is stuff we take for granted but it’s what makes our world such a great place to live.
The Coronavirus has been a stark reminder of the world we live in. That our seeming control over nature and all its aspects are a delusion. However, what’s come out of this is a greater appreciation for each other and the world we live in.
Life may feel like a struggle at times, it may feel like it’s not worth living, but what is the alternative? Trials and tribulations may get us down, but we can put them right, to prosper.
Whenever you feel down, remind yourselves that life is a gift and one that we should embrace and make the most of.
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