art by ~JenRoyce |
Think about all the major ideas that you have about
happiness, about success, about the meaning of your life.
Consider all the factors that are important to you, like
money, success, children, nature, etc., some of which I explored in earlier posts: http://olgarythm.blogspot.com/2012/09/exploring-happiness-pre-requisites_30.html, http://olgarythm.blogspot.com/2012/09/exploring-happiness-pre-requisites.html, http://olgarythm.blogspot.com/2012/08/children-and-happiness.html.
Add or subtract to create a list of things you
are ready to dedicate your life to. Weigh in whether you can be happy with less
(see previous post "Adjust Your Expectations": http://olgarythm.blogspot.com/2012/10/happiness-how-to-adjust-your.html).
Then create a priority list for your life.
art by ~addicted-to-memories |
Include only the most important goals you want to achieve in
life, the end goals, for example, “being happy”, “enjoying the family”,
“earning the living by doing what I like”, “dedicating more time to (fill in
the blank)”.
List the most important priorities first.
To get some perspective, let's consider what we do with the
lifetime we are granted. Whatever we do in life: produce, eat, sleep, travel,
work, quarrel, love, check emails, raise kids, exercise, and
anything and everything else, we do it in exchange for our life. For example,
during a day of work we produced 5 chairs, or contributed to a project for
improving a banking system, or wrote an article, or baked cupcakes. We exchanged eight hours
of our life for it. If you love what you produce, it may be worth it. If you do
not really care and just wait for the day to be over, then you lose these hours
of your life, forever.
The priority list is a reminder of what is truly important
for you. Review your life priority list every morning and decide what you are
going to work on today.This way you will see how much time in your life you waste
on non-essential things like checking updates on computer or bickering with close
people over minor issues. If you find
yourself doing something opposite to your life-goals, such as getting angry at
the world for something, getting stuck at a meaningless joyless job or spending
hours in front of TV, then think again what is most important.
Do not let non-essentials take away your time and energy
from something more important, like enjoying your family, achieving something
meaningful, being happy.
art by ~messofmemoriesxX |
Remember that our time is finite. Would you like to endure
the life or enjoy it? Waste it on something meaningless or celebrate it?
It is probably
impossible to fill each moment with deep meaning and spend all the time on working
exclusively toward the big goals. As always, everything is good in moderation. But
it is necessary to know what your priorities are, and live accordingly.
It is a life-long process. Do not get discouraged if you
find yourself sidetracked. Work on improving your situation and continue to
getting closer to your goals. And always feel satisfied and happy as you get
closer to your goals, even if it is little by little.
art by ~cookiesnmilk |
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