Happiness And Meaning

Living a Life of Meaning or Living a Meaningful life!

We all wake up every morning, day in day out, dressed up and head out. But few among us have ever stopped to think about what exactly is it that we seek, what are we looking for? Is it what to eat, Wealth, Happiness? 

It may surprise you to know that we are all alive but we are all living for different purposes in life. 

To some, the essential thing in life is to have something to eat for a day and they believe the next day will sort itself out. To some, their aim is to get wealth by any means possible, enormous wealth that can be stored for a very long time for the security of their generations yet unborn. 

Many, according to www.psychologytoday.com, coating Emily Esfahani Smith in her article "There is More To Happiness Than Being Happy." according to the article, She reports, 

"While happiness is an emotion felt in the here and now, it ultimately fades away, just as all emotions do: positive affect and feelings of pleasure are fleeting."

  Living a Life of Meaning or Living a Meaningful life are two different situations of life. In our pursuit of the so called 'Happiness' many of us have become selfish, self-centered, thinking that if, and only if we could acquire immense wealth and properties it will bring us something with a fleeting effect- happiness.

 People in this category live for the hour, acquiring and doing things that brings them temporary pleasure. They seldom feel about others or are they empathetic.

Many people today live a life of meaning, a flamboyant life style that brings no peace or joy to the person living such life style (contestable but factual) neither does it brings any joy or solace to his immediate neighbor because they find it very hard to part with their hard earned resources.

 Apart from this, there is the constant fear of loosing their wealth and relegating to a state they detest so much. This, with some other effect deprive them of true happiness which is found in living a meaningful life.

Living a Meaningful life give purpose and hope to the soul. living this kind of life requires you finding meaning to life and this can only be done by thinking beyond the present. 

However, as Rosemary K.M and Phillip Zimbardo Ph.d (2017) put it, 

"Thinking beyond the present moment, into the past or future is a sign of relatively meaningful but unhappy life."

 Also, like I said earlier, if happiness is a fleeting thing, why do we look for it? Because it brings us temporary pleasure but the other one brings us meaning. 

Living a meaningful life will help us see life in a different angle. It will make us realise that happiness or pain is just for a while. But its a pity that many people who try to live a meaningful life always get carried away and forgot to live at all.

Do not get me wrong, living a good life is not bad unless it makes us loose the purpose of living. Finding balance between the two is the ultimate! Living a life of meaning (Happiness) and living a meaningful life (Meaning). 

In a nutshell, when you are happy, when you live happily remember that happiness is but a fleeting pleasure until it becomes a meaning-ful-happiness.

Cheers to life