Your Job Is To Be Happy
In an effort to get and do more, I think that we have forgotten the purpose of life.
Living in a society where ‘doing’ is constantly rewarded, it is so easy to fall into the trap of doing more and more. In my experience, doing doesn’t make us happy. Being is the thing we forget to do! I love Neale Donald Walsch’s quote that “we are human beings not human doings.”
Unfortunately, being happy is not something that just happens - like everything else it takes effort! You need to plan fun. You need to seek things that feel like fun for you! We all have very different ideas on what fun is.
What did you love to do as a child? What was fun for you before the world told you who to be? I remember the smell of play dough, the feeling of crayons on my hands and cutting crepe paper streamers. All these things still make me happy!
Working out what we want is a bigger job than we realise. It takes awareness and space. It's impossible to get clarity about what we want when we are dashing from one obligation to another. It's so easy to forget to have fun, to become ‘practical’ and ‘sensible’ in an effort to fit everything in.
I created my Repotted Retreat (coming up soon in November!) to create space for women who wanted to take themselves away. To give themselves the gift of space and clarity. I am a huge fan of taking yourself away. My Everything You Want Tour to Shanghai is another perfect trip where you get to experience yourself in a different country, a different culture, surrounded by possibilities! The perfect week if you love clothes and food and fun!
I was once asked on a conference panel what I thought was the purpose of life. It was an easy answer for me! I think that we are here to be happy. We are all here attending ‘life school’ to experience ourselves, to enjoy ourselves and to participate in love.
It's very easy to get caught up doing things we don’t enjoy with people we don’t like to achieve things that we actually don’t even want!
Every day, I try to include some ‘pockets of perfect’. Tiny moments of deep pleasure that make me smile, give me joy and allow me to connect to who I am and who I want to be. It might be lying on the floor with my dog, it might be watching a sunset or smelling something amazing. Taking time to please yourself! Having a list of ideas of things that are easy to access, that do not cost money is a great start. Then it is about integrating these things into your life.
Laughing until my belly aches, walking barefoot on grass, arranging flowers, drawing, painting or reading under a tree are all pockets of perfect for me.
It is very easy to forget to have fun. Bringing fun back into your life is about intention. Set an intention to be more fun. To say yes to fun. To deliberately include fun places, things and people into your life. Start to notice the things that really make you happy. Make a decision to include more of them in your world.
The best source of emotional energy is positive emotions: things that feel good.
Imagine that you are exhausted, you are physically tired and grumpy, but then your phone rings and it is someone telling you that you have just won a three-week trip to Europe with your four favourite people! The only catch is that you only have two hours to get to the airport. The energy from the thrill of the win and the excitement of the trip would far outweigh your physical tiredness. That’s the power of emotional energy. You would no longer be feeling tired and grumpy. You would be lit up. Your heart would be racing. You would be feeling lucky, excited and joyful.
I am big on fun and think it is actually the whole point of life. We are born, we have fun and then we die. I have had many arguments defending this belief! What else is the point? Working well to live well is a wonderful way to live. Collecting experiences and doing things that I love are very high on my priority list.
Like attracts like and when you make a commitment to be more fun, more fun will show up!
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never make it out alive!
Elbert Hubbard