“You are among the wealthiest people in the entire world. The average world income is five thousand dollars. Are you higher than that? Then you’re in the top 50%. And if you’re higher than fifty thousand dollars you’re in the top .5%. Do you really need much more than 99.5% of people alive?”This is a passage from Neil Pasricha’s book, “The Happiness Equation”. I am guilty of equating money to happiness and with that mindset, I should be in the top .5% of happiest people in the world. Recently, I have thought about happiness and my own happiness. I have asked myself, “What do you really want in life?”. (I know...super deep question that I want you to reread with your Morgan Freeman voice)
As the years have passed, I have gone from driving a used Dodge Neon in which you had to push the pedal to the floor to merge to an acceptable minimum speed on the highway to a brand new Chevy Traverse that has all the bells and whistles...yet I now hope for a new truck or a Tesla. It’s a trap that I keep falling for. The nicer the car, the higher the payment, the more work you have to put in to earn the money, the more exhausted you get putting in more work, that leads to increased stress, that ultimately leads right back to wanting the newer, bigger, better thing continuing the trap again. This is just one example in my own life that I’m finding isn’t a happiness giver but a happiness taker. Now on to the redeeming part of the blog. Here are the list of things that were happiness givers to me in the last week:
Outside of the tacos, I think I’m finding the key to my happiness is meaningful human connections, continual learning and simplifying my life. As I reread this blog I almost want to delete it because it sounds hypocritical. I’m in this continuous battle with what I practice and what I preach. I hope it comes off as authentic. I hope you don’t hear me saying the only way to find happiness is to sell all your material possessions and eat HelloFresh tacos for the rest of your life. (This kind of sounds amazing though) I hope you take a minute to reflect on your previous day, week, month, or year and do more of what brings happiness to your life. And try not to land in the “new car” happiness trap that I’m in. Reflect and act on what has given you sustainable happiness! Suggestions for sustainable happiness:
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“Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same."Decisions in life are made everyday. It's been speculated that teachers make 1,500 decisions a day. I have no statistical evidence or fancy charts to confirm this fact but I did teach in a kindergarten classroom for 4 years with 27 kids and I can tell you I made about 500 decisions an hour. A few examples of the decisions I made included having a student clean the exterior wall of our building because they thought it was a good idea to pee on it rather than waste recess time and go inside, figuring out how to get a students head unstuck that was stuck in the opening of the back of the chair, and sniffing around the room like a detective to see who pooped in their pants and deciding when I finally found the person how I was going to sanitize everything and continue my day like it was “normal”.
In all seriousness, I had to make a very difficult decision in the last week. This decision weighed on my heart and affected my sleep, my mindset, and my behavior. I would venture to say that I am not alone in our difficulty to pull the trigger on tough decisions in our lives that we face everyday. I also think it’s important to mention that “tough” decisions are relative. It’s tough for my daughter to decide whether she wants to watch Frozen 2 or Zootopia each morning. We spend very emotional moments together going back and forth and it is truly agonizing for her. For me, I could care less because I could probably act out both movies based on seeing them everyday for the last month and change. My point is, we all are making tough decisions and often what is tough for someone is an easy decision for others. Give grace and be a great listener if someone trusts you enough to ask for advice. The difficult decision was to give up coaching next season. With our second child on the way and Danah working busy season hours, we had to decide what next year looked like. I’ve played or coached basketball my entire life. The relationships I’ve made as a part of the Darby Panther basketball program have been a part of my story the last 7 years. That’s a fifth of my life! This quote is more often right than wrong when making decisions. “Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.” I mulled over the decision for weeks when in the end I knew I had to let coaching go to be the best dad and husband I could be. My encouragement to anyone reading this or making a tough decision at this moment is to talk to someone who you really value their opinion about your impending decision. Reflect and sit with your thoughts for a day or two. Then make the decision with the understanding that the best decision for you is most likely the hardest of your options. Don’t waste days, weeks, months, or even years of your energy, thoughts, and emotions before you make the decision as I did. Rip the bandaid off and you will thank yourself in the end. |