Focussing on the right things

I attended a talk by a Buddhist monk recently. It was advertised as being about happiness. And it was just that. He recounted stories about the different things that we always believe will make us happy - success in our jobs, high salaries, becoming a successful athlete, or working for a big company.  Whereas in fact, none of these will lead us to sustainable happiness – it’s all transitory. Happiness is just the short distance between achieving one pressure point and chasing after another. And the distance between these points depends on the goals we set for ourselves or others set for us.  

Daisy and Rosa, our eight and five year-olds, presently believe that happiness can be found on the iPad. And so for two hours every Saturday they sit glued to their screens and not a word or a murmur is heard from either of them. And they seem happy. That is until the two hours are up and then it all comes crashing down. And the thought always comes to me, why can’t they be as happy playing with the iPad as not. 

But isn’t this how we live our lives. That we race after things which we don’t have and which, when found, the happiness lasts as long as it takes us to find another thing to chase. But what if we set ourselves a different set of goals. Goals that do lead to sustainable happiness. And what if we put pressure on ourselves to achieve those things.  Could things be different?

You see, to me, happiness is all about acceptance of self, of situation, and of others. It has little to do with money or success. And only once we have total acceptance of self and others, will we find true happiness. And only when we have true happiness, can we express true love. No matter how fleeting a moment it is. And this is what the Buddhist monk’s message was about. That through acceptance we can discover the love that binds us all together. Whether love of self, love of family, love of friends and animals or love of one’s faith. 

In my company we are about to start a new cycle of goal setting. And it strikes me that perhaps we should think about including some KPI’s that will deliver sustainable happiness, such as joining and attendance at a company interest group (choral, drama, giving back, yoga, tennis, debating, LGBT, etc). Because, if we are happy, then we have the necessary resilience and strength to handle setbacks.  You see, I never chased the job I do. I just accepted what I was offered and then committed myself to do the best I could and found ways of making happiness out of the things that I did.  And being happy in my work has helped me to overcome failure and to remain agile and optimistic enough to try new things. Now, I may not be a CEO for a Fortune 500 company, but I’ve always accepted my fate and made the most of things.  And I feel happy.