I once wrote on article about how we would live a better life if we just accepted what we have in life and learned to enjoy it. To this article some one made a crass remark like “oh yeah all we have to do is accept what we have”.
Now, where would such a remark come from? I suggest it comes from a person who has grown up in the modern society that only value the “corporate dream”. Apparently we are all supposed to be Wall Street bankers and live in mansions. In fact, if you talk to people about what they consider a good life most would say winning the lottery.
Life, however, is not so cooperative in this “corporate dream”. Many graduate from college but never find a job in what they studied. Others try college but do not graduate. Some people try working hard in a job to progress but always end up short. Moreover, many reach their career and education goals, yet still live empty lives.
I have come to the conclusion that any one can be happy with the life they have. Our basic needs can easily be taken care of by a moderate salary. When we budget and economize life is not that expensive. The rest is to be grateful for what we have, be comfortable in our homes, and be actively pursuing enjoyment and pleasure.
In case you did not know it, you are suppose to enjoy life. We are built to receive pleasure from intimacy, comedy, socializing, recreation, entertainment, and other activities. I think life is best when we are loved and have a companion to enjoy life.
The modern world pays more attention to work and money. We all grow up in this world and receive around 20% idealism and 80% of the “corporate dream” of education and work. Life, however, is more 80% intimacy and 20% work.
I believe this is the reason many cannot be happy. Society told us the only life that has value is the modern corporate dream. Society even dictates that if we do not achieve the corporate dream it is because something is wrong with us.
Many spend their days torturing them selves because they are unhappy and have not achieved success according to modern standards. By torturing them selves I mean telling them selves that they are worthless or their life is worthless. Many even call them selves stupid or dumb.
However, problems in life come from not planning correctly. When we are given a superficial understanding of life and we try to use this understanding to manage life we end up not meeting the demands of life appropriately.
The problem is aggravated after we have complicated our lives with bad decisions. All of a sudden we find our selves in debt, unhappily married, and not feeling good. Therefore, not only are we beginning to feel the ill effects of angst and depression now we are limited in resources because of the challenges we created for our selves. These challenges are rent or mortgage payments, living with a spouse that causes us more harm than pleasure, children, repairs for car always breaking down, working long hours, and all the rest of our stressors.
It is not hopeless, however. People live these miserable lives because of fear to have a serious good look at their lives. It is bad enough to have to life. Why should we review it?
The reason is because in order to fix the problem we have to understand it. This means we have to evaluate our selves, our spouses, our marriage, our jobs, our debt, our spirit, our values, our dreams, our hopes, our aspiration, and everything else that does not appeal to us.
Now, I feel I must give you fair warning about evaluating your life in order to make changes does not mean you will be able to get rid of that ugly spouse you have come to despise. Running from the problem is failure to learn how to manage challenges in relationships. Any bad behavior not conducive to relationship success we don't solve in our present relationship we are just going to carry in to any new relationship in the future. Which means we will continue to fail at romance and intimacy.
Okay. Therefore, there you are waiting for instructions on how to evaluate the challenges in your life. What I do is look at what I am facing and decide what needs to be done. Sounds simple. Well it is simple. We can use our own emotions in order to know if something gives us pleasure or pain. I am not talking about immature and superficial pleasure.
Then once I have evaluated stuff in my life I make a list of priorities. I start working at resolving the challenge that I can resolve. My critical challenges were income and business related challenges.
