Benjamin Franklin wisely said, “There are two ways to increase your wealth. Increase your means or decrease your wants. The best is to do both at the same time.”
In other words, if you are striving to be more successful, more joyous or more anything, it doesn’t mean you have to feel dissatisfied with your life right now.
In fact, you can be ambitious and content at the same time, and this Lifehack article has some great suggestions to do so, such as:
1. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket: Keep your interests diversified so one slip up won’t throw you off track.
2. Engineer your day: Experiment with changes in how you spend your time that can make your day more interesting, fun or fulfilling.
3. Break comparisons: Try not to compare yourself to others. Base your satisfaction on your life only.
The more you focus your mind on the joyful things in your life right now, the more frequently you will experience joy. Of course, the opposite also holds true, so if you focus on what you don’t have, then you will continually feel like your life is lacking something.
Your happiness is not tied to any material possession or external achievement, yet many people mistakenly intertwine their ability to be happy with such things. You may feel you can’t be happy until you buy a bigger house, get your Ph. D, become a size zero, or become extremely wealthy, but this is quite far from the truth. These things will not make you happy. Only YOU can make you happy.
Quite simply, you have the
power to decide to be happy, right now, exactly as your life is at this moment.
If you need more inspiration to feel good about what you have right now, these
30 Simple Secrets to Happiness will help you see that your life can easily be filled with joy.