Happiness Requires Action

The secret to happiness is contained within this post. That is not hyperbole or a marketing trick. With this one post I am going to put Tony Robbins and his cohorts out of business. With one post I am going to destroy the mental health industry because I am going to provide you with the secret to being happy.

Happiness requires action

That is it. Boil it down and that is the root of being happy- action. Ok, that is not going to be enough to kill Sir Tony and company. His business isn’t going to be impacted by this nor do I have to worry about a group of angry social workers/therapists putting out a contract on me.

So what does that statement mean. Is it a silly slogan that will one day sell millions of t-shirts. Is it an off the cuff remark that I am trying to make sound powerful and significant? Well, it could be all or none of those things, but I like to believe that it is meaningful and something that works. I can even tie it into blogging.

I blog because I like to record thoughts, memories, ideas and experiences about my life. This place is a repository of stories about my kids. It is a warehouse and living chronicle of their lives and mine. It is where I air out my head and ask hard questions of myself, like what makes me happy.

Have you ever thought about it? Have you ever asked yourself what makes you happy, ever thought about what brings you joy? I don’t think a lot of people do it, but I could be wrong. But it is something that I think about with regularity. It started about 7 or 8 years or so ago.

I woke up and realized that I wasn’t living the life that I wanted to live. Woke up and started asking why I wasn’t and what it was that I wanted to do. And I have spent a good part of the time since then trying to make the changes that will provide me with the life that I want.

You might wonder why it has taken so long. You might ask yourself if I have just been spinning my wheels or wondering if I haven’t taken action. It is fair to say that I don’t like change and am slow to adopt it. Fair to say that it has been an evolutionary process and that I haven’t figured it all out overnight. And also fair to say that I have taken major steps in making some of these changes.

So, I may not be where I want but I have a plan and I am working steadily upon it. Happiness requires action and I am taking it.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt

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