As I little girl I used to think in life, you got fame or fortune by lucky chances, and that happiness was a sheer given from good choices you made in love and career, so pick the right ones.
We didn’t have a widened view of the world unless we traveled, watched television, read books, newspapers, and magazines. Fast forward decades later, and we now live in an digital age of awareness and information.
Then, as we add to our knowledge base, our life’s accumulated seasons of personal trials, celebrations, and emotional ups and downs, we can apply the wisdom.
We all evolve from a child to an adult similar to natural transformation of a young caterpillar to a maturing butterfly.
In this process we can change our personalities. For example, I started out as a focused, straight-A bookworm child (caterpillar worm) whose first adult career was a building relationships hotel sales party planner (social butterfly).
So, who I started out as in limited mindset, isn’t close to who I became and am today in personality, abundant beliefs, and attitudes.
We don’t end up the way we started if we allow ourselves to get out of our rigid, logical lane and limited beliefs that we can rely on, as the only way to do this life. If you stay flexible, new opportunities will show up as you consider them as options.
If you’ve recently considered other life options or are on the other side of transformation, you know the process you went through to live your reality wasn’t easy.
Struggling to eventually break out of the chrysalis made and make you stronger, and let you sustain the harsh winds in the better life and solutions that could’ve been previously problem filled.
That was my experience and the lens I share from.
To live a better life and become a better person in the process, you gave up and traded in old ways in every aspect of your life, for better ones.
When you knew better, you did better. And these days with all the resources around us, you can be aware much quicker, as you’re expected to do more with easily available answers and your new found wisdom.
You can make slight shifts in the daily micro-moments where your changes can be instant with a lasting macro-impact if you choose, in positive transformation.
This intentional personal growth process is totally worth the effort and once you experience and uncover wise secrets of this life that you didn’t know as a child or in your 20’s, you’re never going back to caterpillar living.
Being on the other side means getting so much more for the rest of your life. Investing in growth in yourself is the sustainable way that’s not hype or a quick fix. Instant gratification and dream materialistic purchases never have lasting satisfaction as the initial elated feelings wear off.
If you’re discovering your better, self-aware ways to be happy in mind-body-soul-spirit, you know you’re a witness in your life and what happens to you as you make sustainable, fulfilling choices. You become a better person.
One way is believing that unexplained coincidences are greater than what they appear at face-value. Connecting the dots in your life can get your further, faster.
No one can impose desires and intentions on you. That’s a free will decision you get to consider in this one life you have.
As we age in our 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and beyond, by default we naturally make more observations relative in our own lives, and we can apply wisdom and learned lessons at any time, so we can have a fuller life at any age we’re at.
It’s never too late and never too soon, so why not start sooner so you can enjoy and reap rewards sooner?
In the book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying that has over a million readers, one of the biggest life regrets identified from those ready to die was this collective thought: I wish I let myself be happier.
It’s simple to understand but not necessarily easy to do in our western society where happiness isn’t always highly prioritized. Even with all the conveniences and information we have at our fingertips, our world is more complex and accruing accomplishments is prized.
Wearing a wisdom hat, we can all learn a page from the dying elderly on what’s most important in the end.
One secret is letting go of anger and feeling irritation easily and letting in and resetting mindful happiness always and often in this season, that is your life.
Maybe you need to give yourself permission to not be everything to loved ones or your tribe communities, and start claiming your life as your own, so you don’t live in mixed message confusion.
If you’re a people pleaser at your core this is an especially hard pill to swallow as you let go of what’s not necessary for you to get involved with and to grow into the highest self you can become.
If you’re more an independent thinker or free spirit, then having more grace, accepting that others have different values and opinions than your own and appreciating the gray areas of life, can be the bigger learning curve needed to grow in our collaborative society.
In either case, letting go of your non-serving past thoughts and beliefs and implementing better ways, will help make you happier without your situations needing to change.
We’ve all had things we could re-learn from our unique upbringing, personalities, and as the world evolves into a new futuristic, technology-based and loving world that’s positive, productive, and hopeful.
Believe that, and not the fearful and pessimistic subliminal messages shared in movies such as “The Social Dilemma” or George Orwell’s 1984 book prediction of a restricted future world that was written in the 1940’s. They can keep you from feeling safe and from boldly taking actions in a good direction.
Use your optimistic lens within (inside you) to predict your own positive future outlook as a way to be happy now. Be your greatest influencer.
Find your most important answers to your deepest questions from within. Whatever the question, love is the answer.
Passion work is love at work. The now accepted norm idea of finding your passion didn’t exist when I was growing up. You chose one profession and you stuck with that usually until retirement mainly because of all the time and education you put into learning your expertise.
You may have had side hobbies or jobs, but they weren’t considered anything beyond enjoyable past times or moonlighting that appeared desperate.
Today you’re encouraged to have multiple interests and that’s your personal brand and side hustle. There’s no assigned guilt to blurring personal and professional life, as a growing accepted norm where you don’t have to keep your side hustle separate and hush-hush from your day job like you did in the past.
Switching mid-life careers and finding a satisfying side or full-time work passion makes so much sense today in a rapidly changing world where employers can’t provide stable guarantees impacted by a global economy.
The world is becoming closer to one where we can talk to strangers in other parts of the world without leaving the comforts of our home or paying a long distance phone bill.
You can now acceptably choose to be aligned in doing the work you love that makes you happy and where you can blend into your work-life, plus creative life balance. And the possibilities are endless in your community and around the globe.
So believe in yourself in this life, and that you can do more.
It’s risky to go out on your own limb, but that’s where the biggest rewards are. Give up past ways and believe that there’s a better way, and use your joy meter as a check-in.
Think of falling backwards on a trampoline, knowing and trusting that life has your back. Because it does in your positive beliefs and life will meet you on your trampoline if you take a sudden action or baby step move.
Remember when you let go, you get happiness. You gain your life with allowing new space for new ideas and opportunities to enter. When you close the door to an opportunity no longer serving you, a better one opens.
And after you take a deep inhale, your next breath is a life-giving exhale that was meant to be. That’s the higher thinking that leads to your passion and contributing, fulfilling joy work.
That’s also the most needed impactful work that you can give. The world needs you happy and the contributions you make. These are just some mindful thoughts to consider, along with the wise collective advice from the elderly who have lived here long enough to know what really matters most.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info?
A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Hybrid on Unsplash