Reply To: Question about happiness

[nellie]

Wow what a topic!

Larynxa makes an excellent point about goals and introspection . I find myself much like Rick mentioned,often  relieved instead of happy with an outcome. However, if I am conscious of how my action fits into a larger picture then I can appreciate it for what it is.

When I started on this journey  of discovery after my ADHD diagnosis and re-examining my life in context of the diagnosis and what it means to my everyday experience, I  suddenly found my self trying to define my values. I swear I had no clue what I valued and what made me happy. Sure, I knew that family was important to me but seriously I had no clue about the rest. Little did I realize that the other “stuff” served to round it out. For example, when I realized that I also valued adventure and craved some way to fulfill that requirement, it became obvious that I needed to add it in to my lifestyle in order to feel happy. There are other values as well and some rank higher than others.

Another example, I also feel a strong need to be involved in my community. However, anyone who has ever done any volunteer work knows how quickly it can suck in your time. Well in my case, while something I valued, I knew that I had to limit my involvement and learn to say no in order to remain balanced. This makes it much easier to take on projects or not. It took me a while to get other people to respect my limits though!

Obviously, there are many reasons why one could be unhappy but I  think the starting point is  to know what would make our life complete – a wish list of sorts. I think defining values is a key to this.

Here’s a random list to start..

http://www.values.com/teaching-values

http://www.selfcounseling.com/help/personalsuccess/personalvalues.html

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/list-of-values.htm

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