Everyone wants a happy life. The question is how do you get there? I truly believe these are the three fundamental questions you must answer for a happy life. Life is not a chance; it is a gift. Rambling aimlessly through life rarely offers deep fulfillment or happiness.
Thoughtful answers to these questions provide a window into either, why you are living a happy life or why you are miserable. It is not too late! Spending some time with these questions can help you turn a “ho hum” life into an adventure worth writing about.
You are only three questions away from a happier life.
The only three questions that really matter in your life are the ones that profoundly affect your whole life. They set the stage for all the other choices that you make from the daily to the life altering. If you are not making these choices yourself who is?
The Only Three Questions That Really Matter for a Happy Life #1
Who will you serve?
First figure out who you are serving. Get out your checkbook and you calendar. While you are at it, you might want to also ad in this social media tracker. It is a brave new world out there due to the internet.
Where are you spending most of your time and money. Are there patterns.
This question answers many others. Who you choose to serve will lead you to make choices about where you live, the education you seek, the career you choose and the life you carve out to live. What is taking up the bulk of your time and energy?
The answers to these questions will tell you who you are serving now. Be honest. Is this who or what you want to absorb the bulk of your time and money? Did you get here consciously or just fall into something that seems to work and so you kept doing it?
Is the who or what you serve “life giving” or “life sucking”? At the end of the day what is your attitude about how you spent your time? Do you wake up in the morning excited to get to it? Whatever it is? Or are you laying in bed wishing and dreaming you had a way out of the next day, week, month, year?
The Only Three Questions That Really Matter for a Happy Life #2
Three questions to a happy life.
Who will you marry?
After who or what you serve this is the biggest question that affects your life for the rest of your life. Marriage, long term committed relationships, divorce, and intentional or non intentional singleness affects all aspects of your social status. All of these terms define different social groups and different ways in which you relate to society and society relates back to you.
The decisions of your partner shape your life, too. Things that you may or may not have wanted, accomplished, purchased or participated in are influenced by this long term relationship. Your growth or non-growth as a human being is profoundly influenced by those around you especially, those most intimate relationships where hiding your true nature becomes almost impossible over time.
For many of us who have already answered the marriage or non-marriage question more than once, the next question is often the key to the longevity of intimate relationships.
The Only Three Questions That Matter for a Happy Life #3
What is your attitude toward life?
It is more than a glass half empty or half full view of the world. What are the words you use to describe yourself and your life? How do you see others, friend or foe? Do you believe that no good deed goes unpunished? Or that the universe is out for your good?
More important how do you talk to yourself? Is the constant chatter in your head one of a harsh unloving parent or a kindly guide that helps you work through difficult issues or mistakes with love and forgiveness?
I am not talking about a fairy tale “Polly-Anna” world view, but a clinging to what is good, what is noble, what is true in you and in your life.
First become aware of your thoughts. Then if you find them to be more negative than positive count yourself normal. If you are more positive than negative count yourself lucky and keep strengthening that positive thought muscle!
Find some positive affirmations you can say to yourself regularly. I know! I know! but it works and it is simple and free. Imagine in your mind a positive person who gets up each day with joy. Imagine yourself being that person. Currently, I have a friend who greets everything big or small with the statement, “this will be fun,” She uses a cheerful voice and has a big smile, like she really means it.
I am working on channeling this energy into my life.
When to Ask the Big 3 Happy Life Questions?
Rumination on all of these questions needs to start early in life. Instead of asking, “what do I want to be when I grow up,” which in this day and age (with most of us having reinvented our selves 5-15 times in our career) is just stupid. There, I said it out loud! Even parents, grandparents, teachers, and peers need to ask each other the only three question that matter in life.
A happy life is dependent on the alignment of these three questions being answered on a regular basis.
Each person, intentional or unintentional, sets a course for their lives based on the only three questions that matter : 1)who we choose to serve, 2)who are in relationship with, and 3) our attitude toward live.
If our actions are out of alignment with our answers to these questions, we experience frustration and the feeling of being stuck or worse, being hopeless.
A happy life does not mean a life without job loss, relocation, failed relationships, cancer; it means that instead of being a passenger on the “if only” bus, you start driving the “I am responsible for my choices” Volkswagen.
No nine year old says, “I want to grow up to be a grumpy old person who does not have any friends and hates what I do for a living.”
So, do the work. Answer the only three questions for a happy life early and of ten.
It will be fun!
I agree that the 3 questions are important. Two things stand out to me as “a person of a certain age” –
these are not forever answers- they need to be asked at various stages of our lives- and we have a choice about our attitude. Thanks for the reminders.