“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy‘. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon
During a recent call with my sister-in-law, she asked, “How do you and Monica do what you do? You guys seem so happy.” Honestly, such a broad question gave me pause. We’ve been blessed to do and experience a lot over the life of our marriage and while full of joy and excitement it hasn’t all been happy. But what my sister-in-law was wondering was how Monica and I experience “happyness” as we move together in our purpose. A few things come to mind:
We have become comfortable in who we are as individuals which comes from a solid understanding of where our strengths and weaknesses lie. With that understanding, we’ve learned to rely upon one other to be strong in areas where the other may be weak. We rely less on traditional social norms that prescribe how we should behave as husband and wife. Instead, we adopt the “whatever it takes to get it done” mentality. That requires a strong dose of humility from the both of us.
We work to understand our gifts and talents (EVERYONE has them). With that, we tend to exist in spaces where we can exercise those gifts and talents in the corporate, civic and faith based community. Monica is amazing in every sense of the word in all she does. I’m not too bad either and have been blessed to experience a fair amount of success – we both have.
Lastly, we move with a faith and belief that we are on a never ending journey to fulfill God’s purpose. It’s not all mapped out and we are still in discover and explore mode but we are confident we are moving in the right direction. We see the signs and we follow them.
In knowing these things, this is where we find our sense of “happyness” and when you operate from a place of “happyness” success abounds.
What makes you happy? Have you and your spouse found your happy place both as individuals and as a couple? Where are you in your “Pursuit of Happyness”?