What we want more than anything is to be happy. To live this life that we have in a happy state most of the time. To feel joy and contentment on the majority of days, and overall with life in general.

For those of you who are not happy with your life in general right now, I have a question for you.

Are the people in your life, and the activities you do indicative of the life you want? Do they represent the life you want? Do they contribute to a feeling of happiness?

For some, the answer may be a partial yes.

But for many, the answer is likely no.

We tend to fall into the life we have, without consciously thinking about the decisions we make.

As we get older, our friends are made up of people we work with, or people in our neighbourhood, or perhaps long-time friends we went to school with but no longer share the same drive, ambition or hopes and dreams with.

Our activities are based perhaps on what’s easy to do. Maybe falling into the same activities as the people mentioned above. Or letting go of things we use to enjoy to do the things our partner wants to do, or what the parents of our kids’ friends do. Following the crowd so to speak.

Even our jobs may be a reflection of what others want for us, or it may have been one that presented itself out of necessity rather than desire and we became ‘stuck’ in it.

When you look at these, it’s no wonder life is in general unhappy.

Life is just happening, without conscious thought, without intention.

In order to have a life that is for the most part happy, we have to actively, consciously, mindfully make decisions based on what will make us happy. This includes who we spend our time with.

There’s a widely shared saying that we are the average of the five people we spend most of our time with.

If you don’t believe it, take a look at the five people you spend the majority of your time with, and see how you compare to them.

Your life is a reflection of who you spend your time with, and what you spend your time doing.

Think about that.

It’s so simple yet something we are totally oblivious to when complaining about the state of our lives, the lack of satisfaction with our lives.

If your life is generally unhappy at the moment, I ask you to first look at the people you’re choosing to spend your time with, and the activities you’re spending your time on.

Then I ask you to identify the people you want to emulate, the people you want to be like, and also the activities that would contribute to your happiness…..then find ways to spend your time with those people and ways to do those activities.

I’m not asking you to cut the current people out of your life. That may not even be possible, given their connection to you. But you can determine the space they take up in your life.

“Sometimes people must be escorted from the VIP section of your life to a regular seat.” ~ Kimberly Jones Pothier

Will it be easy? Maybe not, depending on your circumstances.

But won’t it be worth it?

 

 

Featured photo courtesy of Senjuti Kundu