Want long term happiness? This can help

Do you like Japan? Oh I love it! The culture of Japan sounds pretty awesome! Their food, their dresses, their anime, their traditions, their lifestyle… It fascinates me.

Okay so, this post is not about Japan. You might be wondering what long term happiness has to do with Japan?!

Oh well, there’s a reason I talked about Japan because the concept that I’m going to introduce to you, originally comes from Japan.

So what does it mean to be happy?

How can you achieve long term happiness?

Japanese people have this really interesting concept that I’m going to share with you all today, which many people have found to bring long term happiness in their lives.

It’s called ‘Ikigai’

What is Ikigai?

So Ikigai literally means a “reason for being”. The word Ikigai has been derived from ‘iki’ meaning life and ‘kai’ meaning realisation of hopes and expectations.

Its something you can do every single day which can make you happy in the long term.

“Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.”

– Victor Frankl

Many people think not having to do anything will make them happy. Seriously?!

You can spend a week without doing anything. But what next? You gotta do something in your life! You can to do something you like, something you’re good at and something that brings happiness and meaning in your life.

Now speaking of work, let me be clear. Don’t think that “If you love what you do, you won’t have to work a single day in your life”. I haven’t found that to be true.

I mean doing what you love is definitely interesting and cool but it still feels like work. You get tired and exhausted but you have to keep going.

But if you choose your work, based on the following guidelines, you will be happy with your work and achieve long term happiness and satisfaction in your life.

Now, tell me –

1. What is the activity that you love doing? Something you really like to do and can spend hours doing that.

Because if you want to be happy, you need to do something you like. Or you might not want to pursue it long term.

2. What is something you’re good at? I mean what’s your strength? What is something that you can do much better than others?

Oh you cannot do something you’re not good at and be happy! haha… I mean you need to have the necessary skills to keep going. Or you might get bored soon or even depressed.

3. What is something that you can get paid for? I mean how can you earn money by doing what you like?

Money matters! You need to get paid well to enjoy your life. Yeah, I know money can’t buy happiness. But if money is spent to get some kind of experience, it can make you happy! Because memories last longer than material things and you can cherish them and be happy.

4. Is what you like to do beneficial to the world in some way? How can you help others by what you do and bring a positive change in their lives? Or how can you ease their lives by solving a problem and make a difference?

You are happy when you help others. Many studies have proven this. When someone tells you you’ve made a positive impact in their life or helped them in some manner, how does that feel? You feel extremely happy right? You are also satisfied with your life and your work when you’re constantly seeing the positive impact you’re making.

There are four combinations that come from these 4 criterion.

If you do something you love and something you’re good at –

That’s your passion.

But having a passion is not enough.

You gotta find ways you can get paid for it and figure out how it can be helpful or beneficial to others.

If you do something you’re good at and something you can get paid for –

That’s your profession.

Many people have their profession, but according to Ikigai, to be more happy you need to figure out whether you really love what you’re doing and how can you change the world for the better by doing so.

If you something that you get paid for and you believe it makes the world a better place –

That’s a Vocation.

But that’s not enough either. You need to figure out how can you get better at this or how can you improve your service and whether or not you like the job you do.

If you do something the world needs and something you love –

That’s your Mission.

Now it’s great to have a mission! But you also need to figure out how can you get paid well for your services and how can you improve your work, how can you get better and better at what you do.

And if –

You have the all four…

Congratulations!

You are going to be happy and satisfied with your work in the long run.

So, keep doing what you’re doing!

I also want you to remember that this is not the only criteria to be happy.

Doing this may not be actually possible for some people and I totally get it! It’s okay. Life has many more chances to be happy.

But if you’re struggling with your job, work, profession, career, this can definitely help. This is something you can strive to achieve.

To be honest with you guys I have a Mission right now. I need to figure out a way to earn from it and how to get better at what I do.

Hopefully I’ll be able to achieve the balance soon.

What about you guys, what do you have? What do you need to work on?

Did you find this interesting and helpful?

Please let me know in the comments below!

Thank you so much for being here!❤️

Hope you have a happy and productive week!! 🙂

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To my soulmate

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

❤️

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

❤️

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow,

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

❤️

I want to know if you can sit with pain,

mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

❤️

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own;

if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy

fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without

cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

❤️

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

❤️

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.

And if you can source your own life from its presence.

❤️

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,

and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

❤️

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

❤️

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

❤️

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

❤️

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

❤️

– Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Different stages of love and relationships

I have a collection of beautiful and meaningful quotes that I like to read for support and encouragement while going through a particular phase of life. I am a Quodophile I guess…. 😄

But these quotes, these messages really uplift me during tough times and make me smile during happy ones.

So, here are the different stages of relationship and the quotes that relate to that particular phase. You might resonate with them, you may be inspired by them, or you might just feel that you’re not alone in this. Others experience the same struggle as you do.

Either way, I hope you find them helpful. 😊

Happily single

Okay so I want to start with singles. This is the stage when you realise you need to simply wait for the right person. You have finally understood it’s better than being in a wrong relationship.

It might be a lesson you’ve learnt after being in a toxic relationship or you just don’t want to settle and are waiting for the right person.

This quote expresses my feelings about this stage –

God, I surrender my heart to You and ask You to keep it safe until it’s time for me to give it away. I am grateful for every time I didn’t settle for anything less than Your best for me. In the lonely times and the uncertain times, help me remember that with You, nothing, especially love – arrives too soon or too late, but right on time.

– Mandy Hale

About to leave a toxic relationship

This stage is so important after suffering the pain, betrayal, disappointment and all. If you have realised that you need to step of this relationship, here’s something to help you –

I exhaled you. You are no longer in control of what I feel. You are no longer a weight clinging to the back of my throat. I let you go. I set you free. And giving you your pair of wings was the best decision I ever made for myself. I am fuller now. Brighter. Lighter. I am me. And I have never been more complete than I am now.

– R. M. Drake

Falling in love with yourself

This is a very beautiful kinda stage. You give yourself love, care and attention you’ve been needing for so long. You work on improving the relationship you have with yourself. (If you are, trust me it’s gonna be so beneficial to you in the long run). Once you love yourself completely and unconditionally, once you understand yourself, once you start enjoying your company, you realise you don’t need anyone to complete you.

I love this quote that reminds me to do the same –

Be alone. Eat alone. Take yourself on dates, sleep alone. In the midst of this you will learn out what inspires you, you will curate your own dreams, your own beliefs, your own stunning clarity and when you do meet the person who makes your cells dance, you will be sure of it, because you are sure of yourself. Wait for it. Please, I urge you to wait for it, to fight for it, to make an effort for it if you have already found it, because it is the most beautiful thing your heart will experience.

– Bianca Sparacino

When you are figuring out why they left

This.. is painful. You don’t know whom to trust, what to do, everything is shattered. You don’t trust love anymore, you feel…. Lost…. Completely utterly lost…

This is something I want to share with you –

It took me a long time to realise that not everything in life is meant to be a beautiful story. Not every person we feel something deep and moving with is meant to make a home within us, is meant to be a forever. Sometimes people come into our lives to teach us how to love and sometimes, people come into our lives our lives to teach us how not to love.

How not to settle, how not to shrink ourselves ever again. Yes sometimes people leave – but that’s okay, because their lessons always stay and that is what matters. That is what remains.

– Bianca Sparacino

When you realise love isn’t the only thing you want

This happens when you realise that he/she might be someone you love, but not someone you can spend your life with.

You need something more, in a relationship.

For her, love always fell into that little space between regret and hope. When someone awakened that part of her, she always hung on a little too long, or a little too hard. And some would say that’s what you do with love – hang on. But she’d been alive long enough now to understand that love is only a foundation – a building block. And it needs something else – many something elses – to glue it together so other it sticks enough to build a life on.

– Emma Grace

When you finally realise this isn’t what you want (though you thought you did)

Ahhh…. There comes a time when you realise that even though you thought you wanted him/her forever, you no longer do.

Situations have changed, you have changed, they have changed and now you know yourself much better. And now you are confused about what to do – you have invested yourself so much emotionally into this relationship, getting out of it suddenly sounds strange.

But now, somehow being in relationship doesn’t feel right either.

It’s okay to change your mind, to make mistakes, to walk away from someone you once loved – from something that once meant the world to you. It’s okay, because this is your life, your cause, your body, your beliefs, your mind, your heart and your feelings. And you don’t need validation from no one, other than you and I hope it doesn’t take you a lifetime to realise that.

– R.M.Drake

Meeting your soulmate

This is the best part in everyone’s life I guess. It’s when you realise –

No, a soulmate does not complete you – they inspire you to complete yourself. A soulmate is the person who supports your direction, who motivates and encourages you to stretch, to change, to reinvent yourself until you are happy. A soulmate is someone is someone who loves you with so much conviction and so much heart, that it is nearly impossible to doubt just how capable you are of becoming exactly who you have always wanted to be.

– Bianca Sparacino

The Commitment

It’s when you two have finally decided to stay together and enjoy each other’s company for lifetime. You know it’s not easy, but you want to be together through life’s up and downs.

So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard, we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me…. Everyday.

– Nicholas Sparks

The long lasting love and relationship

This is when you are happily engaged. You have formed that deep, passionate, beautiful connection. You know that no matter what happens you two ain’t gonna give up on each other.

The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give you forever.

– Nicholas Sparks

Happy Valentine’s Week friends!!❤️

No matter which stage you are in, remember there is love all around. Spread Love❤️ Be love.