How will you measure your life?
There are probably dozens of well-intended people who have advice for how you should live your life, make your career choices, or make yourself happy. Similarly, walk into the self-help section of any bookstore and you’ll be overwhelmed with scores of choices about how you can improve your life. You know, intuitively, that all these books can’t be right.
But how can you tell them apart? How do you know what is good advice — and what is bad?
There are no easy answers to life’s challenges. The quest to find happiness and meaning in life is not new. Humans have been pondering the reason for our existence for thousands of years.
People often think that the best way to predict the future is by collecting as much data as possible before making a decision. But this is like driving a car looking only at the rearview mirror — because data is only available about the past.
Indeed, while experiences and information can be good teachers, there are many times in life where we simply cannot afford to learn on the job. You don’t want to have to go through multiple marriages to learn how to be a good husband. Or wait until your last child has grown to master parenthood. This is why theory can be so valuable : it can explain what will happen, even before you experience it.
How do fundamental theories relate to finding happiness in life?
Theories are powerful tools. I have applied many of them in my own life, others i wish i’d had available to me when i was younger, struggling with a problem. If we can’t see beyond what’s close by, we’re relying on chance — on the currents of lift — to guide us. Good theory helps people steer to good decisions in life.
Why are some over-achievers never happy and content with their lives and what can they do to change that?
One of the theories is what’s known as the resource allocation problem. Every people intent to have a fulfilling life. Many high achievers, however, end up allocating their resources in a way that seriously undermines their intended strategy.
Every time they achieve something : make a new business, get a bonus or a raise, are offered a promotion. It feels good to them; they can see and feel like they’re succeeding. So they ask themselves : “how can i keep succeeding like this? — and they keep doing the same things.
The problem is, this isn’t what makes us happy in the long run. The single most most important factor in our long-term happiness is the relationships we have with our family and close friends. But these relationships rarely deliver the same short-term “hit” ; this is especially so in comparison with the sense of achievement high-achievers get from their careers. For instances, it may take decades for you to be able to say : “boy, we really raised some great kids.” Conversely, if you keep investing your time at work, on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t feel like anything has changed on the home front.
So starving those relationships of investments like your time doesn’t feel like it costing you anything — all the way up until it’s too late. You lose touch with your friends, find yourself staring down the barrel of a divorce, or become estranged from your own children.
The first, and of the most important, steps in fixing it is simply recognizing that the problem exists.
Most people graduate from college without knowing what they want to do in life. How we can know what we want in life?
The first has to be : find out what truly motivates you. Lots of attention to jobs after college goes towards what we call the hygiene factors — how much you’re being paid, whether you have a prestigious title, and so on. That’s not enough. You have to work out what you really love doing, what gives you a chance to shoulder responsibility and achieve meaningful things, what makes you want to get up in the morning and feel like your job is an absolute joy.
The next thing would be a plan to found something that you really believe is going to be the thing you do for the rest of your life, then be prepared to change it. Unexpected opportunities and challenges emerge all the time in life.
You should work out what you think the purpose of your life is going to be. Everything you do — in your career, your personal life, where you volunteer your time — falls out of an understanding of this question. Take the time to figure your life purpose.
