Is it the end already?

Reading time ~ 3 minutes

The usual way life works is something like birth, school, some training for a job, working in this learned occupation, get married, have kids, retire, die. Maybe there are some ups and downs somewhere between birth and death, but otherwise, this still seems to be the way people think they have to live.

I know a lot of people which wouldn’t want it any different. They enjoy their life just the way it is. And that’s all fine by me. It wouldn’t be how I want to live my life, but as long as you are happy, go for it. And with this small remark, we found the big problem with this “classic” lifestyle. Or with any other way of life, you think you have to live.

Happy. This small and innocent word. Are you happy? That’s a question we should ask not only the people around us but ourself more frequently. Am I happy?

Being happy doesn’t mean that you have to walk on clouds with a big, fat smile on your face 24 / 7. It doesn’t mean that everything is perfect and there isn’t something you don’t like. Happy isn’t perfect. Happy isn’t sunshine and flowers and unicorns. Happy only means that you live the life you want to live. That you don’t follow a way of living just to do what others see as a good life. Happy means that you can be you in whatever exciting, colorful, boring way you want to.

“Am I happy?” is the first question you have to ask yourself to be able to figure out what to change in your life. But most people don’t even ask the question. And if they ask they either don’t answer honestly or they don’t listen to themselves. Because most of the time the answer isn’t the one we want to hear. Who wants to face that they are unhappy? And if so, who wants to do the hard work it takes to become happy?

No. People want to be happy without any effort. They want to the right job, the right partner, the right hobby, the right friends, the right apartment and so on just to appear out of the blue. So that they live a happy life. Just like that.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Wouldn’t it be great just to imagine the life we want and for it to appear? I agree that sounds fantastic. And if you figured out how this works, please let me know. But until then, we have to find another way to have a happy life. To have a good life. To have the life we want to live.

And here we go. First step: Figure out how your perfect life looks like. Second step: Figure out what to do to reach this perfect life. Third step: throw everything over the heap and keep on improving your life because you realized that your imagined so-called perfect life isn’t really what you want to have. What’s much more exciting, much more worth living is the journey. To figure out new things, to improve yourself, your skills, your life.

It’s never about reaching an endpoint. It’s always about the journey. It’s about improving ourselves. It’s about being who we want to be all the time.

So, if you know the secret about how we can get everything we think we want without any effort, please don’t tell me. I just want to keep on figuring it out with all its ups and downs and all its exciting sides. Cause that’s what a good life is all about.