I seem to spend most of my day pissed off at one thing or another*, so I took the Satisfaction with Life Quiz fully expecting to be told that I need to be medicated.
Your total score: 30
Are you effing kidding me???
The little blurb they gave with the results was very telling.
If you scored 15 or under, you are dissatisfied with your life. If you scored 31 or higher, you are extremely satisfied with your life.
If you scored somewhere in the middle, happiness expert Dr. Robert Holden has some advice on how to live a more satisfying life. Dr. Holden says the key to being happy is overcoming "destination addiction," which he defines as "living in the not-now."
"It's always about tomorrow, so you're chasing 'more,' 'next' and 'there,'" he says. "You promise yourself that when you get there, you'll be happy. And I promise you, you won't, because you'll always set another destination to go for."
Instead, Dr. Holden says if you are unhappy with your life or looking to improve your score, there are two things you can do. "We have to learn to let go of our past, we have to give up all hopes for a perfect past. Let the past go, it's gone." After that, he says, "Take a vow of kindness. Be kinder to yourself and to others.
"It's never too late to be happy," he says.
I have spent my life saying "as soon as I..." and have missed so much! "As soon as I lose X pounds, I will swim with my kids!" or even silly things like "As soon as I can speak French fluently I will buy that great movie!" or "As soon as my house is organized, I will decorate it!" GGRRRRR!!!
Maybe it is because I am getting older, but I have slowly come to realize that if you are always putting off happiness until *whatever*, it will never happen. Corney but true.
Our plan is to head to Hawaii as soon as the kids are on their own, established in their own lives. I am not waiting for "retirement" to live my life. I am not going to take the chance that one of us dies before we really get to live the life we want. We are (for the most part) living the life we want to NOW. With a few exceptions (like location! lol), our lives are exactly where we want them to be, if we could do it all over again.
*Ok, I don't really spend most of my day pissed off. I promise. I used to be quite a bitch, though. It has really been within the last year or so that it *clicked* and I finally decided I didn't want to be the bitch anymore.
The boys and I were chatting the other day about Anthony LaCalamita (the guy from Troy who shot to death one person and injured two others Monday at accounting firm from which he was fired last week.) We were talking about how someone could get so mad that picking up a gun seemed like a good choice. I don't know. I told them that I have never been so mad that picking up a gun (or baseball bat or whatever) seemed like a good idea. The fact that the news reports are calling him a "a man with a troubled past of suicide attempts and mental illness" isn't really a surprise, is it?
6 comments:
My response can be found here, link whore that I am.
Or should that be link 'ho?
Ok, I think that is my new favorite song. Where can I buy it?
ITunes ;)
It's Tragically Hip, on the "Trouble at the Henhouse" album. I LOVE the Hip, and that was one of my very first favorite songs of theirs.
For some reason I never think of iTunes for Canadian bands.
I really like that song. If they are all as good as that one I may have to investigate further. lol
I've put many of their songs up - youtube - on my blog. I love them. Maybe I have to put some more up?
I personally think that learning to be happy with where you are, when you are there is the key to true joy in this life. Remember that post about veganlunchbox I posted last year? (10/11) You have settled in and are happy in your skin. That is an accomplishment. :)
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