Project Happiness Articles — achieve

I choose to live my life now empowering those weak be it by their cognitive delay, their socioeconomic status, or their lack of social confidence. Despite being a victim of child abuse and the long range effects of it, I choose to rise above. So many people stay stuck there or become abusers themselves.

Moving abroad may sound a bit frightening - after all, it means being surrounded by strangers, in a new place, having to adjust to a new culture. You would have to leave behind everything you know and love. But if you take your eyes off the challenges, you will realize there are numerous ways in which moving to another country can improve your life incredibly and make you happier.

I’m talking about the fear that unfailingly comes up every single time we set out to do something expansive, something enriching that’s out of our comfort zone, and that likely even calls to us and inspires us. That’s where COURAGE comes in. Courage is the ability to meet our fear and to overcome it, to show up and take action, despite it.

Regardless of my ‘over-achiever’ personality and how proud I should be, I would doubt everything constantly. Travelling taught me that I would still doubt life choices and push myself more than I could handle at times. Travelling solo taught me how to deal with these situations, take a step back, breath, smile and appreciate all the little things, which are essentially the bigger things.

Everyone wants to be happy, yet no one seems to know how to do it. The act of being happy has sparked a lot of discussion and thousands of studies have been conducted trying to solve the problem with happiness. Psychologists and scientists seem to have found the solution: little habits create big changes and lead to happiness.

I attended a workshop recently on the topic of flow or what some people refer to as “the zone.”  We were discussing that professional athletes, musicians, and experts, create their best work in the zone. So, is being in “the zone” just for the extraordinary or can we mere mortals, doing well but seeking to do better, learn the tricks of the trade?  

When we have a fixed schedule that we must stick to, we know exactly what the next step is. There is no more procrastination, and no more lost time. We are fully concentrated on our assignments, since we know that they must be completed. We create a routine that must be respected.

I like it because you can embark on whatever you wish. How delightful it would be if we all, instead of "having to do", " should get done" or "must finish", we simply embarked on every day, every task, every thing as though we were compelled by this work to simply journey without necessarily knowing the ending.

I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve looked back at decisions I’ve made, often the frightening or difficult ones, and had an incredible amount of gratitude wash over me. Gratefulness for that one person who had the guts to take a leap; my past self.

I have given much thought to that age-old question of how we square pegs fit through a round hole; how we fit through the opportunities before us. And what I have found along that journey is that we have three answers – and therefore three options.