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Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment – the literal definition of happy I believe many can agree that happiness determines if one is leading a well-lived life, at least it does for me. Though I once believed that the importance of happiness was overrated, I have come to a realization that I am constantly chasing and yearning for happiness. Through various encounters in life, I have learned that happiness comes and goes and that having something or someone to hold on to is what will keep one alive. “We are all lost souls, wandering in the night, trapped in our own minds. Free your racing mind from anxiety and inner peace in a world of chaos.” this has been a saying that really spoke to me and nudges me to find joy in the simplest things in a world of chaos. Therefore, I have decided to design a well-lived life based on factors that make me happy which include having a purpose, a relationship with peers, and the capability to love and receive love.
The first factor to a well-lived life is finding a purpose in life. This factor might sound the simplest, but it is indeed one of the toughest objectives to be fulfilled in life. You make the decisions you want, feel what you want to feel, and choose the direction to proceed in life. Do you find yourself questioning your purpose in this universe? Fear not, some people spend their whole life figuring what their purpose in life and I would say one is lucky to have it figured it. However, I do think that people can develop a temporary purpose in life with every phase of their life. Personally, I found myself developing a kind of small and temporary purpose in life and for instance, I would determine my purpose in life to be learning. Learning every small thing I can from school, work, and people whom I interreact with, understanding the works of life and excelling in school. This might sound shallow to certain readers, but it works for me, it keeps my life on track and has a goal to work towards. Having a purpose in life serves as a checklist for me and I experience happiness every time I check something off the list.
With a purpose in life, I will then be able to love what I do which is also an important factor as one would often their life seemingly resembling a broken tape with repetitive routines and patterns that cannot be broken which often refers to one’s livelihood, social circle, living habits and train of thoughts. This makes life repetitive and even boring in some sense which causes life to lack excitement and anticipation. However, if one were to love what he does, he will be able to see the smallest spark a routine can create, he might not even feel like his daily life is a routine. Everything is interesting and exciting for that individual and that is what you need to lead a well-lived life – being able to feel the excitement in the things you do and the feeling of fulfillment every time you achieve something despite it circling around the same job.
According to a study by a team of Harvard School of Public Health researchers, it is said that if you feel you have a higher sense of purpose in life, you are more likely to remain healthy and physically strong as you grow older (Feld, 2017). This shows that it Is indeed an important factor in having a purpose in life such that it is even linked to one’s health condition. A positive psychology instructor at the University of Pennsylvania Emily Esfahani Smith said “Purpose is less about what you want than about what you give.” and explained that the key to purpose is “using your strengths to serve others.” (Smith, 2017). It has been proven that having a purpose in life gives one a reason to move forward, a direction, and something to strive towards. There will be multiple instances in life where you will feel lost and helpless but having a purpose in life will serve as a guide to keep you on track and find yourself back.
However, it is said that there are limitations to finding a purpose in life and as mentioned earlier, not many people truly find their life’s purpose and live by it. As mentioned on the site, purpose is everywhere and as time goes by, we stray away further from the possibility of even finding some sense of purpose in our life (Mirchevski, 2019). Furthermore, we live in a world with endless competition which makes happiness harder to achieve today precisely because we have advanced in many aspects throughout the years and choosing to live dishonest life to impress other people (Mirchevski, 2019). For instance, people often only show the positive aspect of their life on social media platforms as such Instagram which is unrealistic but might cause you to be influenced to aspire to the same lifestyle. With the decision to live a dishonest life to impress others, you can be unknowingly influenced to achieve something similar causing you to find an unrealistic purpose. Despite the limitation of finding a purpose, one can start by learning to be content with who they are and what one has at the moment. Being satisfied with where you are at currently, with who you are now, maybe be your purpose right now. It can be everything, as long as you are happy with your decision (Mirchevski, 2019).
The second factor to a well-lived life is my relationship with my peers and the people around me. The feeling of belonging links closely to this factor and it comes from “being in relationships where you’re valued for who you are intrinsically and where you value others as well.” (Smith, 2017). My friends have played a very crucial role in my life as my companion at different stages in my life. Being an only child, I have always relied heavily on my friends and opened up to a certain few whom I can connect with. These people made me realize how important it is to have friends in my life. They are the ones who would lend their helping hands when you are at your lowest with no one to go to. Friends are people who provide you with physical and emotional support, people who go out of their way to help you, and people who genuinely care about your well-being. There is a saying that “you are who you surround yourself” and that spoke to me when I started observing who I surround myself with and the different kinds of decisions made or activities we choose to do. These are people who make me feel like there are hopes in life, shape me into a better person, and people whom I can hold onto for a period of time. These factors also include people who I surround myself with such as
Personally, I have been through a very tough period of my life when I experienced a loss of a person and felt lost for a period of time. My then-boyfriend had just broken up with me two days before my graduation and that left me broken and lost. In addition, graduating meant that I had no goals temporarily, and lost my daily routine and something that kept me occupied for the majority of the time. At that point in time, my friends made time and ensured that I am not alone in these difficult times. With my friends, I was able to go through with it, come out strong, and learned to be more appreciative of the small things in life. It was a dark period of my life where I felt very lost and empty, not knowing what to do, and having to experience the loss of someone whom I held dearly to. However, the end of the relationship made me learn to be more appreciative, and value what I have and the people I have.
A recent Harvard study concluded that having solid friendships in our life even helps promote brain health (Tara & Pope, 2009). Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro said “There are just scads of stuff on families and marriage, but very little on friendship. It baffles me. Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships.” (Adams, 2009). I was able to strongly relate to Adams’ saying as I always felt that my friends could connect and relate to me better than my family due to age and cultural differences. A study even suggested that spending time with positive friends actually changes our outlook for the better which basically means we are happier when we choose to spend time with happy people (liveaboutdotcom, 2017). A 10-year Australian study shows that people with a large circle of friends were 22% less likely to die than those with fewer friends (Giles, Glonek, Luszcz & Andrews, 2004). In addition, a large 2007 study also showed an increase of nearly 60% in the risk for obesity among people whose friends gained weight (Tara & Pope, 2009). All these findings could back the importance of this factor up and prove that relationships with friends are indeed important.
However, there are limitations to friendship and relationships with the people around me as well. Life is guided by principles and instinct, not emotions which is a big factor in friendship and relationships with people. As much as friendship and who you surround yourself with are both important factors in your life, you cannot rely on and depend on these people all the time. Everyone has their decision and life to fulfill, and while an individual set out to fulfill them, you cannot expect them to prioritize you all the time in this case, you should prioritize them and give them all the support and strength they need. I have always believed that my relationship with my peers and the people around me sets the foundation of myself, my mental state, and my personality to a certain extent. Nevertheless, I always remind myself to always depend on myself before turning to my friends and family for help which you should too.
The third factor to a well-lived life is the capability to love and receive love. Love is always in the air and love has been an important factor in many people’s lives but what happens when you are unable to love and receive love? This has been a troubling thought for me since I had an encounter with the disability to love and to receive love. Love does not only apply to your romantic partner but your friends and families around you as well, or even self-love.
Personally, love basically means unconditional, sacrifice, and blind. Unconditional means that there are no expectations or limitations set which is a difficult thing that not all humans are capable of (Morgan, 2015). Ted Mosby, a fictional character in the U.S. television sitcom How I Met Your Mother once said “If you’re looking for the word that means caring for someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want no matter how much it destroys you, its love!” (Mosby, 2014). The saying from Ted Mosby truly enlightened where I realized that I was capable of loving someone when someone’s happiness felt more important than mine. Sacrifice is another characteristic of love as well when one goes out of his way to ensure the happiness of someone else despite having to suffer from it. It is common to prioritize the other party and place the party’s well-being before your well-being which will even cause you to give up comfort willingly. I am sure you have heard of the common saying, “Love is Blind”, which often refers to one being blinded by love, not being able to see reality and the point of view of others which is generally considered as something negative. According to Thought Catalog, when someone looks at new love, the neural circuits that are usually associated with social judgment are suppressed which meant that in a way, love really is blind (Nelson, 2018). However, I view this behavior positively at times when a significant one occupies your entire mind as if it is your world and have everything to revolve around them which is a characteristic of love as well.
With all these, I do believe that negative and tough experiences in life convert into baggage in life which hinders one’s ability to love and receive love. I have personally experienced it and have since been doubting my capability of loving and receiving. After a tough experience, I felt as if I could feel nothing, but sadness and I could not reciprocate the love my friends and families showed me instead, I pushed them further away from my troubling thoughts. This disability has haunted me ever since and to this day, I am still struggling to regain my capability of love and receiving love where I question myself if I am worthy of the love shown by my family and friends. Like how many of you have experienced, love allows you to experience happiness and happiness has been the main factor in a well-lived life in this essay. This can be considered the most important factor in a well-lived life as it is something that can be experienced by everyone in the world. However, the disability to love and receive love would lessen one factor of happiness and decrease the chances of a well-lived life.
As mentioned in a blog post in GoodTherapy, “Love is something we get more of by giving it away” (Munoz, 2017) which backs up my three factors of love namely unconditional, sacrifice, and blind. The well-being of Humans Studies has proven that if it were not for love, people would have been sick not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well (Romance Ways, 2013) which showed the importance of love such that it is linked to an individual’s health. In addition, as mentioned in Thought Catalog, through a 75 yearlong study conducted by a group of Harvard researchers, it is shown that love is really all that matters as the participants’ lifelong experiences prove that happiness and life fulfillment revolved around love or simply searching for love (Nelson, 2018).
Unlike the first two factors where I listed out their limitations, I think that love has no limitations and boundaries. Love is a universal language and one can act freely and speak freely in it. “Love knows no reason, no boundaries, no distance. It has a sole intention of bringing people together to a time called forever.” (Fowler, 2015) which made lots of sense to me how love brought people together. Love does not mean exclusively in romantic terms only but to everyone around you as well. Though it’s so cliché, I do believe that love can conquer anything in the world and heal people. Love is something that can be spread to anyone and is a language that anyone can learn to understand.
With the three factors of a well-lived life listed out, the real question is, can one really plan their life? I do see the need and benefit of designing a well-lived life, but on the other hand, I do not think that life will always turn out the way you planned it to. I am a strong believer in “Things happen for a reason” and that one should take life as it comes. There are things we can and cannot control, and life is something we cannot control. No one except god knows what will happen in the future and the best way to look at life is to view things such as designing a well-lived life as a sense of direction or something similar to a checklist. Designing a well-lived life allows you to discover what you truly want in life and what makes you happy. With that, you know what to seek in life and that creates a path for you that might be filled with obstacles and uncertainty, but at the very least, it gives you a sense of direction and perspective on life. As quoted by Marilyn Monroe, “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” (Monroe, n.d.), I strongly agree with her quote that we should learn to accept things as they happen, believing that they happened for a reason and that things will fall into place naturally. Embrace whatever comes your way and be ensured that tough times don’t last but tough people do and that these unfortunate or undesired events happen to shape you into a better person and that you are on the exact route to a happy life. Life is filled with uncertainty but by designing your well-lived life, you have things you can fall back on knowing that these factors are what will work for you and that these factors mentioned above are proven legitimate. One can truly experience happiness by accepting what is and letting go of what one cannot control (Fahkry, 2017). Psychotherapist David Richo wrote “We can learn to accept life on its own terms. We can even find in terms satisfactory. We do not have to shake our fists at heaven. We do not have to demand an exemption or take refuge in a belief system that muffles the wallop of the givens by promising a paradise without them. We can craft a sane and authentic life by saying yes to life just as it is. Indeed, our path is “what is.” (Richo, 2005) which is true and something everyone should read on.
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