By Mark Kaplan / March 10, 2020
What is Life?
Not in the biological sense, but life tends to be a mix of our expectations and reality. We are constantly measuring our status compared to our expectations, to our friends, how it used to be, and what we want in the future.
So, at any one time our life is a point on a curve we hope is ascending. The two bars on the graph are a bottom line of expectations and a vertical bar of happiness. Our point on the hopefully upward curve is a mix of where we are compared to what we expect or are willing to accept.
What is Work?
Some people identify with their ambitions and for some ambitions are a means to something else. If song writing, computer science, teaching, or being an entrepreneur is what you want to do most in life, your passion is your work.
If your work is time invested for the money to do everything else, then everything else will need more time in your life. This group will seriously measure the sacrifices vs rewards of their time invested with a career or employer and be unhappy if the rewards are not great enough for the time invested or their everything else is not getting enough attention.
This second group worries employers the most. It is often the group that changes jobs more frequently, has more difficulty engaging in their work, and more difficulty with loyalty. By estimates, this group might be 70% of the workforce.
Measuring Values
People with a passion for their ambitions have a benefit of being single minded and often look at free time as necessary to catch up with the other necessities of life or to rejuvenate.
People investing time in work to fund other purposes need meaning in their free time. This creates a great opportunity for personal growth to create this purpose and meaning. For this group, their free time will define them.
Personal Growth and Happiness
There is a scientific viewpoint of happiness. It is dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins stimulated by the brain for certain thoughts and behaviors. Think of how happiness always follows thoughts or actions and you see the causal relationship. They key is creating positive behaviors that make happiness a constant.
When we plan, execute, and revel in personal growth behaviors, we experience the happiness brain chemicals that make us feel purpose and meaning. Following personal growth behaviors or keystone habits can lead to passionate pursuits.
Some of these positive behaviors are learning, creating, contributing, health and fitness. Each of these behaviors have been found to stimulate the hormones and neurotransmitters of happiness. Each also creates growth and in Nature’s eyes, improves our “survival opportunities” (see more in my book Creating Your Own Happiness)
Now both groups of people can find what they consider balance. One feels balance in their pursuit of ambitions and one feels balance in the pursuits of their free time.
Read Habits of a Happy Brain by Loretta Graziano Breuning Ph.D
Read The Good Life Plan by Mark Kaplan See Excerpts
Read Creating Your Own Happiness- Lifestyle Self-Coaching Course by Mark Kaplan See Excerpts
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See Post Happiness, Fitness, and Mindfulness
See Post How We Enjoy Intensity without Stress
See Post Life Style and Work Life Balance
See Post Creativity Can Be Career Changing
See Post Increasing the Flow in Your Life
See Post Fitness Nutrition and Weight Management
See Excerpts for my Book “The Good Life Plan”
