• Life Beyond Wishful Thinking

    Contrary to the popular notion that fulfillment and happiness ought to be derived from work, happiness and fulfillment ought to be aspects of ourselves, we take into work.

    Amid jam-packed, fast-pace, result-oriented and repetitively monotonous life engagements, it is very easy to lose the sweetness of life. Living in this result-oriented century is becoming more or less a duty-bound livelihood, thanks to major technology leaps.

    Such a frantic arrangement is creating people who just want to go through life, no matter the direction. This is because the fast-pace allows no room for contemplation about the innate effortlessness and intrinsic bliss of life.

    Even avenues such as the religious institutions, schools, that are perceived as strategic fulcrums to restore sanity and balance to the frantic mode of the 21st century, have taken on that, which they ought to combat. A deficiency of happiness and fulfillment is an emblem of this century!

    To compensate for their failure to match the speed of living in the current times, millions of people have resorted to feeding on self-help literature at best or succumbing to a multitude of harmful and harmless addictions at worst.

    It is a truism that whether you are happy or not, life goes on. It may not be your life that goes on but someone else’s. So, where does one find happiness amid such planetary gloom? Definitely not in this frantic surrounding.

    As long as we are going to look at happiness as something out there we ought to run after and or cling to, then we are forever going to fall short of happiness. Like we have already seen, there is no happiness waiting to be found, in the dynamic events of our engagements. It must be somewhere else!

    Pleasure and pain are tied to the needs we have. If your need is to have an apple and it is brought to you, you will be happy. If you however have an allergy for apples and an apple is brought to you, you will feel pain. We could conclude that your happiness fluctuates as much as your needs

    So, for a fulfilled and happy life, it is necessary to not only be aware of your needs but also be aware that your needs could be met in unpredictable ways. Embracing the unpredictability of how your needs could be met reduces the effect of disappointment on your emotional well-being, in case the needs are not met.

    Cultivating a lifestyle grounded in happiness, first, is going to be one of humanity’s challenge, in the bid to restore sanity on the planet. Do not hesitate to reach us, at the African Exponent, with practical suggestions on how to forge a livelihood grounded on sobriety and happiness.