Dear reader,
It’s all about finding happiness, whatever that is, isn’t it? We do things to be happy; buy things that we believe would make us happy; look for relationships to find a person we could be happy with; strive to find a job with a meaning to find happiness, etc. Many times it doesn’t work. None of these forms. So what is it then?
Happiness appears to be universal, yet you get different answers to the question what it means to be happy and how to get there. Most people try at least, some even know what it looks like and how to make it last. Most of us hope we might get a clue, sometimes we get closer, sometimes well … we’re pissed.
Happiness is overrated, yet it is what it’s all about. Some call it meaning, purpose, some call it love, some call it passion or bliss. Same as in paragraph above – 100 people, 100 definitions, all right from their point of view. “To be happy” is the most common best hope I notice about my clients. Ways and shapes come different, but in the end in its core meaning, it comes down to this.
I had a client today, she said she wants to find a goal and meaning in her life. Some straightforward direction, a clear path. She’s about my age, so we are both representatives of the generation Y, which has it difficult these days (high youth unemployment, we are sometimes called “the lost generation” …). So defining a goal as our parents did, is not as effective strategy for us as it was for them. Also the meaning is different. So at the end of a lovely session, she asked why I keep doing this, trying to help other people, giving my time and efforts. For nothing.
I remembered a story I once read somewhere. Don’t remember where, in which language (have a clue might be French?), what the plot was, nothing. What I remember, is that a story was about a boy child, who came home to his mother and was really in a bad mood. He was bored and annoyed, he moaned. “Make me happy!” he shouted to his mother. She turned to him, embraced him and after a while said: “Why don’t you go help someone?”
That was the story. Well I do hope that I’ll make a living on doing this one day, but it’s not for the profit, just to enable me do what makes me “happy”. So now you know. I didn’t tell my client this, because we’ve been talking about other stuff. But this is what I would answer.
Here’s to introduce my friend to you, who helped me in Brighton as I was “alone in a foreign country”. Is this happiness? Well then I consider myself really lucky!