What does happiness mean to you? Alex Shalman recently had the chance to interview 34 top people/bloggers about their vision of happiness, which in turn became his Happiness Project. It’s a group writing project that allows bloggers talk about their visions of happiness to provide an amazing collection of the human spirit across the blogosphere. I first heard about Alex’s project from my daily reading of John Chow.com where he was able to have a huge guest post outlining the rules and guidelines of contributing. I think this is such an intriguing idea that fits very well with what Know The Ledge is all about. So much so that I had to stop what I was doing and write up my own vision of happiness based on the five questions that he has outlined.
1) How do you define happiness?
Happiness to me is when you’re excited to wake up and start your day in the morning because you believe in what you’re doing. The feeling that you’re doing not only what you want to do, but what you feel you were put on this planet to do. Some may think a calling is something that sounds corny, but happiness to me includes the feeling that something bigger than yourself is driving your passions and interests.
2) On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?
I would rate my happiness as a 7. As a child I was very happy, but it was a bit different. It’s easy to be totally carefree as a child as you’re too naive to understand the responsibilities of the adult world. As an adult I’ve been able to accomplish quite a few things in a relatively short period of time, but I still have a long way to go to reach my goals. However, what makes my happiness a 7 is that the strength of my relationship with my family has been a constant reminder of how lucky I am.
3) What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness? (and how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day)
Right now my main source of happiness comes from my family (number one) and my online business endeavors. Building Know The Ledge gives me a great deal of joy because I like to share my experiences in hope of helping people. Also, with the site finally garnering some momentum, I feel excited to see what’s to come in hopes that one day I won’t have to work my current day job. The feeling isn’t all that consistent right now since most of my week is spent working at my normal job which contributes a lot to my daily frustration.
4) What things take away from your happiness? What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?
Definitely my current frustration with my day job takes a toll on my daily happiness. It’s a natural progression when you’re doing something you’re not necessarily passionate about. Over time it just becomes a necessary evil that you hope to get through. In terms of removing it from my life…I’m trying! The more that my business interests are able to support my family, the closer I will come to removing that stress from my life. I can’t wait!
5) What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?
Well, first of all I plan to continue building Know The Ledge and my other sites in a way that remains positive and useful to my readers as well as hopefully growing it as my main source of income. I also plan to spend more time with my family and make a point to have more fun in my life. Sometimes we get so caught up in our goals that we lose sight of what it’s really all about.
Well, there you have, my happiness in a nutshell. I really like what Alex is doing and hope that the Happiness Project ends up reaching it’s potential as a great example of what makes us special as people. It’s amazing how something we all search for (happiness) can be so different to each of us. Do you really know what happiness means to you?
March 13th, 2008 at 2:51 am
[…] Know The Ledge […]