I Ask Myself This One Question Every Morning To Live Happy Days

Its power could make you happy too.

If you’ve read my other work then you know that I am obsessed with the power of questions. I strongly believe that if we can ask ourselves the right questions in life, we can make incredible changes for a happy and more fulfilled life.

One thing that I have been keen on is finding ways to break the automation that our lives are entrenched in. Think about it: you wake up, put yourself together, do what you need to for your family, get to work, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the steam train has to keep moving, and it’s difficult to even consider slowing it down; there’s a lifestyle that needs repeating, sure.

The problem is at what cost do we do this? Is our automation going to bring us to looking in the back mirror saying, “man, what did I even do with my life?”. I know there’s a lot to accomplish in life and you want some future to be a guiding light to aim at, but friend, automation numbs our feelings. Surely, that is not the kind of bland, sensationless life you want if you want to be happy?

To be happy, you want to feel each day intending to make it great.

And so maybe this question can stimulate a stop to the automation and actually lead you to a path to feeling something in your Today.

What will I do today to make this an incredibly meaningful day?

Let’s break down each part of the question.

“Do Today”

Be honest, how often are you sitting in one place but thinking about another imaginary event? How much do you dream about a future date where you will have a chance to breath and relax? We all dream about vacations! Oh, and retirement? We say things like, “that’s the car I’ll buy when I’m retired”, “I’ll just lounge and read amazing fictional books all day”. Needless to say, our minds dwell a lot. A Harvard study found that not only do we spend almost half of our days dwelling, but those of us who dwell are less happy doing so than those who don’t. Our minds dwell to places that make us less happy because we seem to dwell on things we wish we had but do not currently have. We have to train our minds to break this terrible habit of time-traveling in the negative space.

I am here to tell you that we have all succumb to this automated ‘time-travel thinking’ and it is keeping us from tapping the potential of our today to make us happier. I speak as a victim. It’s not an easy thing to escape from. We are addicted to it. That is why this question, if asked daily, will ground you to observe everything that is possible today. The temporal restriction will force you to discover something that you will be able to do today to make it awesome for you.

Daily actions are the way to happiness; not obsessing about past or future ones.

“Meaningful”

‘Meaningful’ is such a powerful word. It’s used quite heavily in the clinical research space when clinicians are seeking to identify the benefit of medications. They ask, “Is this a clinically meaningful drug effect?”; as in, will the patient’s quality of life, as perceived by the patient, improve to a level that the patient would care for? For example, if the drug reduces the patient’s migraine pain, is that effect actually allowing the patient to go out and play with their child or finish an important project?

That’s why I am certain that when you ask yourself for a ‘meaningful’ outcome from your day, you’ll use your intuitive scale to determine what actually would be meaningful to you. It’s highly subjective so there isn’t any external influence. When this word ‘meaningful’ connects with the demand of ‘today’, you’ll be forced to dig deeper to find something of value and to stop dwelling on things that aren’t in your happiness toolbox in the present time.

“Incredibly”

The presence of this word may come off a little unnecessary to you but I find it to be quite valuable. Its presence in the question hammers home whatever you will consider meaningful. Again, my goal is for you to intuitively search all the actions you can take in your today and allocate ‘incredibly meaningful’ as the outcome of completing one of them. It won’t be easy. You will struggle to pick something because you’ve spent a lot of years — as have I — fantasizing about bigger, better situations. Thoughts like, “Am I doing enough?” may erupt but don’t fret this because that is exactly the point of asking it. The question will force mental collisions between the time-travel thinking we tend to assert a lot of meaning to and the beautiful reality of everything you actually will do today.

Final Word

Look, not every day will be spectacular, and that’s okay! Life is complicated, messy and a real pain in the a** sometimes. But I also know this: we spend way too much time ignoring the present day and dwelling either in the past or the future. This is fundamentally destroying our potential to be happy. So try this question. By asking it, fall in love with the things that are actually within your arms reach. Train that time-traveling brain of yours to look for amazing, incredibly meaningful actions today.

“The reason some people love to engage in dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing, car racing, and so on, although they may not be aware of it, is that it forces them into the Now — that intensively alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality.” — Eckhart Tolle

Thanks for reading and I love you all.

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