Filling Your Happiness Quota
The best measurement of our quality of life is not our pay level, job or organization we work for, or even family dynamics. No matter what your age, role or lifestyle, the quality of our life is always determined by our happiness.
What makes us happy, or even the level of happiness, is incredibly individual. We know those individuals who seem to have it “all” yet are continuously unsatisfied. And we also know those people who have very little in comparison to us and yet are always smiling with a twinkle in their eye (with no additional help from other substances).
Based on a 2010 Harvard study, people spend 46.9% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing in the moment, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. When we are not present with the situation or task that we are involved in, we are in our thoughts—analysis, projection, judgment, planning or distraction. When you add our evolving addiction to technology to this process, we also remove ourselves from the present moment through entertaining our minds with anything but what is going on right now—Facebook, Twitter, websites, emails, texts, etc.
Happiness, like every other emotion, can be experienced in our thoughts. However, when we spend almost half of our time lost in thought, we eliminate the possibilities of experiencing that which makes us happy in the present moment. If what we’re experiencing in the moment does not make us happy, escaping into our thoughts removes the possibility of impacting change to fulfill our needs and add to our actual happiness quota.
If you’re feeling strained and unhappy, instead of escaping into your thoughts, become present in the situation right now. It may feel uncomfortable initially because, after all, you are being strained. However, going within yourself, you will feel what it is that you need right now in order to experience balance.
Maybe all you need is to take a break, walk away and breathe. When you come back you may have a more balanced perspective. At the other end of the spectrum, you may find out that you no longer want to participate in the current situation.
Checking in with yourself may bring up some difficult decisions. However, you will be truthful with yourself and start to create an environment which makes you happy more often, reducing your stress and improving your quality of life.
Our happiness is individual. No one else can truly make us happy. Only we have the capability to recognize what we need, and appreciate what we have.
About the Author
Dorota Ulkowska, Senior Trainer and Consultant, The Potential Project
A Mindfulness Corporate Facilitator working in the Alberta market for 6 years, Dorota’s experience expands to 15 years of Corporate Executive sales among the Energy, Education, and Government sector. Dorota has been practicing Mindfulness for over 20 plus years and has been working with individuals, groups and corporations assisting them in overcoming stress and expending their individual Mindfulness practice within the workplace.
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