Final Report Installment #1
#10 Alain Villarosa
Happiness,
Meaning, and the Search for Mission
Happiness. It’s an abstract
feeling that we all tend to focus on in life. All of us find different sources
of happiness, such as love, hobbies, or luxuries. It’s hard for some of us to
find happiness at times, especially during our misfortunes or simply having a
bad day. It’s a great thing to have no doubt, but is simply finding happiness the
best approach to life?
Often, I would personally
question myself “What makes me happy?”
The truth for me is that happiness comes and goes. I would lose interest in hobbies,
I would feel anxious in relationships, and I would find things to be a waste of
money. You may feel that way too as well. However, there is one thing I recently
found besides happiness: meaning.
In my opinion, meaning trumps
happiness, and it can definitely bring a good life. Meaning gives us a sense of
purpose, which ultimately tells us that life is worth living. Happiness is such
a broad word; it’s too vague to find and too malleable to hold on to. We need
to be more specific on our search of happiness to “flourish” in life, and
finding meaning is a good way to start.
We all know that finding meaning
in life is very hard to accomplish. However, by taking small steps and slowly
acknowledging ourselves, it is possible to develop a sense of meaning. From
watching a TED Talk speaker Emily Esfahani Smith, I learned that there are
steps or ways to finding a meaningful life: belonging,
purpose, transcendence, and story-telling.
There’s more to life than being
happy – Emily Esfahani Smith (Length - 12:18)
-Belonging is experienced from relationships like family and
friends, where you are acknowledged for who you are and where you value others
as well. In short, “true belonging springs from love.”
- Purpose is learned from knowing your strengths to
serve others. We tend to focus on ourselves and not on others; by helping each
other out, we can feel more satisfaction of our skills or strengths, and
therefore, develop a sense of purpose. This usually occurs through work or
responsibility, like as parents, teachers, doctors, or even students. It just
takes the mindset of accepting one’s skills or strengths and putting them to
work through serving others. After all, most jobs out there contribute to serving
the community.
- Transcendence is acquired by engaging in or even being
exposed to novel things that impact your experiences. Special moments can
really make your day and give you a new perspective of life. Do you remember
the feeling of seeing the total solar eclipse of August 2017 for the first
time?
- Story-telling helps you realize the overall hard work or events
that you have experienced to let you know that you are an awesome person.
Telling yourself about your own life story can help you change and even develop
a new meaning of life.
These 4 pillars presented by
Emily Smith are worth looking into. Meaning is one way to change your view of
happiness. Still, there is another view that can impact your mindset of how
meaningful your life can be, and that is finding
your mission.
Finding your mission allows you
to fully analyze your abilities and use them to serve not only for others but
also possibly for the world. The take away of our mission is to develop a
purpose or greater sense of meaning in life. For example, during college, Elon Musk,
a well-known engineer and entrepreneur, questioned what his mission in life would be. He asked what
the world needed urgently and analyzed his abilities which led to four of
possible missions he can pursue: space exploration, electric transportation, artificial
intelligence, and rewriting the human genome. He chose the first two after
careful consideration and established his mission that he still works hard on today.
It can be difficult to find a
mission. It takes a great deal of introspection to carefully analyze your skills
or talents, and choose a path that fits them well to further develop or simply
help this world even if it’s a very small contribution. We don’t need to
compare ourselves to others as long as we aware that we are on a mission to help
and serve. Clearly, you don’t need to have a great deal of intelligence like
Elon Musk to establish your mission.
Finding Your Mission – SoL (Length
- 4:18)
Sources:
I don't know many meaning-and-mission centered people who aren't happy, not in a shallow smiley-face way but profoundly and enduringly. Indeed, to flourish as a human in classic Aristotetlian terms is precisely to excel in achieving a sense of purpose, community engagement, belonging etc., all ingredient to a meaningful life.
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