Image Source: Happy – This image has been modified and enhanced
Do you ever wonder why you are not happy with your everyday life? Do you hate what you are doing everyday?
I have been thinking about the same questions for sometimes. I finally realize that you have to be happy to keep your happiness. It may sounds not logical, but it makes much more sense when look straight to your unhappiness.
Happiness is all we are looking for. We all want to have a great happy life. Regardless who we love, what we do and how much money we have earned, we want to be happy not just at the end of our life. We want to be happy everyday.
Are you happy with your everyday life? Do you know why you are not so happy about it?
Personally, I am happy with where I am heading in my life. I have dreamed to success in the business world and have dreamed to travel around the world. I am happy that my wife totally supports my decision to become who I plan to be. There is always something bothering me. I am not happy what I have done. I want to be happy all the way to the end of my life. I don’t happiness as the result of my life. I want to be part of my life process. I want to be happy everyday.
Am I not happy?
Yes and No. I am happy to see myself as a self-motivated entrepreneur, but I am not happy to see my slow progress. Like many entrepreneur have suffered. Many success entrepreneur starts at age 40. I don’t want to admit that my unhappiness has anything do with middle age crisis. I think that is just an excuse to avoid the responsibility in your life. What I am really unhappy about is the progress to be happy.
I need to find a way to get out of this happy and unhappy circle and filling the happiness in the circle. Here are the things I am happy about.
1. I work alone like a true start-up company entrepreneur.
2. I work whenever I want and wherever I want
3. I can learn a lot of new stuff everyday
4. My business is growing
5. My wife support what I am doing
6. I can spend as much time as I want on anything
Now my happiness become my problems, which trigger my unhappiness
1. I work alone without a helping hand – Working along is very hard. It’s like a small shrimp fight against the big whale in the open sea. A true success entrepreneur should not work alone. I need to get rid of myself from the circle. I need not to be the bottle neck of my success.
2. I work too much and drink too much coffee – Without working efficiently, nothing will get done fast. It also means more have to be done. I am happy that I got my things done everyday, but I am not happy with the time I spent to get things done.
3. I have to learn a lot of new things everyday – It’s fun to learn new stuff. When leaning becomes over head, it’s not fun anymore. I have to learn how to get help from experts.
4. My business needs to do better than last year – I am happy when I see money comes in to my bank account. Pressure is on! I need to make sure there is more money on the way to my bank account this year. Happiness becomes a desire. Desire brings unhappiness.
5. A great support for the happiness. I am happy that my wife is sharing her happiness with me, but I can’t share my unhappiness with her. I can’t afford to cause her happiness on my journey.
6. I have spent too much time fight against unhappiness, because I have spent too much time looking for happiness.
I have found a truth about myself! I am happy when I see happy people around me.
That’s right! I suddenly realize that my happiness is not far away from me. They are around me. Whenever I saw people smiling, laughing and showing their happiness, I felt happy. I often forgot what cause my unhappiness. I got energy and motivation from the phenomena around me. I walk and sing the same time. I get things done faster. I have found my solution for my happiness.
I need to make people happy and I will feel happy!
When I saw the smiling child photo above, I smile too. I don’t know why people are smiling, but I know they are happy. I am happy too. This gets me thinking about a new project. I want to make this a hobby. I will start looking for happy people, find happy smile photos or took photos of happy people. I want to know about them and I want record them.
Do you like to see people smile? Would you share your happy smile photo with me, which motivates other people to smile?
It’s a simple project idea. Send me a smile photo of you and tell me why you are happy.
Let’s make everyone happy! Shall we?
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Terence, By now you would have come to some conclusion of what sort of a person I am. I am sure that it will not come as a surprise to you if I were to say, yes, I am happy every day. I am rarely unhappy but when I sense that I am, I deliberately shift my thought process to something enjoyable. This trick has worked for me for many years. There is something else that I must add, no one can be for ever happy. He will not understand it unless he experiences some unhappiness too. You can not have one without the other to compare.
i am surprised that you do not wish to trouble your good wife with your unhappy thoughts. I hope that she reads your posts. Otherwise, you might like to talk to her about it. You may be in for a surprise. She will want you to. Good marriages are built on sharing everything, the good and the bad. Women intuitively understand this and will share with their husbands, but I suppose that it is a man thing not to want to reciprocate. Just please talk to her about it and see what she has to say about it.
Hi Terence. I am hopeless when it comes to photos. I don’t even have a pic of myself on my computer!
But, since your post was so thought provoking and i would like to help to make you happy, I will scan some pictures up this weekend and send one.
Hi Terrance,
I am very happy with my life. I have a strong faith in God, Jesus ! And I am blessed with a nice family : a nice hubby, a healthy son and a job which I love because I know I make a difference in people life and their families.
My happy face can be found on the post I recently posted.
http://www.seaykopitiam.com/2008/02/01/how-to-make-sense-in-this-senseless-world/
And my cheerful son in this post :
http://seaykopitiam.blogspot.com/2007/11/ginger-man-and-jj.html
Cheers !
Jamy
@Dining Tables:
Thank you so very much. My wife has been very supportive on whatever I am doing, which made me very happy. I am just unhappy that I am not reaching my goals. She always told me not to worry and smooth me with “Time will come.” That actually makes me much more guilty. She is believing in me, but I felt guilty not reaching the point of her believing.
The problem is on my side that I have to figure out. Sharing your problem caused by yourself to your spouse doesn’t seem to be fair to your supportive other half. I have learned that you should never make your own problems other’s problems.
@Catherine L:
Ha! I love to see your photo soon. It will be great to what people are happy about.
@jamy:
That’s great post. I love to see happy people. Will read the details. Thank you for sharing.
ups, looks like something went wrong with my reply and it got lost in cyberspace
I was talking with my BF over coffee and breakfast this morning about exactly what you are writing in this post, they say coincidences don´t exist
Overall I am very happy with my life, just the occasional breakdown when I start thinking about all the effort I am putting into all my projects and not seeing the progress I would like to see, yet. But then, when talking about it with my BF, and knowing he is there for me to fall back on, supporting me and believing in me, is enough to continue on the road that I am currently on, I just know it will work out great!
As far as a photo of me smiling, I have one posted in my about page
Keep up the good work, I know you will succeed, as a matter of fact, you already are!
@Mirjam:
I would love to visit Spain sometimes. It’s so great to have someone there for you, isn’t it? Yeah. I am glad that my wife is always with me.
You have a very nice smile. Keep smiling!
I firmly believe that happiness is infectious. I really believe that old saw: cry and you cry alone, laugh and the world laughs with you! Happiness does spread happiness
@Recliners:
Ha! That sounds right. Thanks!
“I work alone like a true start-up company entrepreneur.”
well i agree & thats one of my happiness too terence…
@AXA:
Thank you! Hope you enjoy your entrepreneur journey!
Hi Terence – this post really stood out since I recently wrote about this topic myself. I have the same conclusion you have – we shouldn’t work to have happiness as the end goal; instead, we should use happiness at the starting point as we work towards our goals.
The point you made about not sharing your unhappiness with your wife really stood out to me. It might not be best to bog down a spouse with day-to-day problems, but if there is an overarching problem on someone’s mind, wouldn’t it be fair to share that with the spouse?
@Al a5 7P:
Thank you for stopping by. I read your post too. That’s a great post. You are right on the overarching problem. I think a person should try to solve all their own problems before reaching out for help. I have seem people who just throw/share problems to their spouse without resolving their own problems first. It becomes the problems between two persons. That’s not something I want to see happening.
I discuss my business idea and difficulties with my wife to get some different opinions and make sure my business will benefit both our life. When it comes the time to solve my business issues, I have to face it and get it resolved myself. If I have to rely on my wife to solve problem for me, my achievement won’t mean anything at all.