Three Questions for a Happier More Fulfilled Life.

If you could boil your life down to three questions, it would probably be these.

Mark Twain once said “Nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of hanging”. It focuses on what’s important. All the superficial things tend to fall away.

So many thoughts were racing through my mind as I lay wide awake the night before having major brain surgery.

In the weeks and months before I had a series of small strokes and a large aneurysm in my right frontal cortex. I was being prepped for urgent treatment the next morning.

I was given the gift of space, focus and clarity to ponder what was and wasn’t truly important in my life.

In doing so, 3 questions emerged, which I believe everyone would do well to ask themselves. Other questions naturally flow from these, as they help unravel our lives.

1. Did I make the most of my life?

Harriet Beecher Stowe said “The greatest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone”.

Our society teaches us to go to school, work, college, get a loan, work, pay off the loan, work, get married, work, buy a house, work, pay off the mortgage, work, have children and 2-week holiday, work again. Until retirement. Then possibly enjoy if we managed to save up and kept our health.

That can’t be the whole reason we live. A mere formula serving external systems and responsibilities.

I realised there’s a huge difference between a busy day and full day. Between a busy life and a full, happy life.

One is a timetable, the other is a living philosophy with meaning and purpose.

In the process of rushing and fulfilling external responsibilities, too often we lose the taste, the connection, the experience of truly living.

We forget our purpose and our meaning. Our dreams. We forget ourselves and why we are here.

Our entire life has been commoditised for time and ‘convenience’. For efficiency. For show. For ‘achievement’. For distraction. For sharing on social media in between our duties and responsibilities.

In our modern rush, how many of us take shortcuts, gulp our life like fast food, use abbreviations like “thx’ instead of ‘thanks? Or ‘Happy xmas’ instead of happy Christmas?

We save an extra second of our life when we skimp a few letters in a text. Do we use that second to pursue dreams or goals, to grow or to improve our life?

Research shows we don’t. More often than not we move to the next distraction in between rushing between our responsibilities.

Our talents, passions, dreams remain unfulfilled. Our inner selves remain hidden. The months and years tick past.

S.L.O.W. D.O.W.N. and B.R.E.A.T.H.E.

Despite the need to be ‘busy’, it’s ok just to be.

Every morning, meditate. Plan your day. Strike a balance between goals which further personal growth or passions, and other commitments.

Look carefully at what you are focussing and spending your energy on. Every single day ask yourself how this focus and energy adds to your life or detracts. Does it bring you fulfillment or mere distraction?

Even when we are busy with work or study, filling obligations and commitments, there is still space for connecting with who we truly are and with life.

If you are busy or can’t get outside, examine a plant near you. Really look at it, right down to the tiniest detail. The tiny hairs and pattern of veins in its leaves. Ponder its story silently, what it has seen, whose hands it has passed through from seedling to now. Note the tiniest little insect walking on the leaf doing its own thing in its own little world, totally oblivious to you. What’s its story?

You just spent two minutes of your life connecting in a far healthier, more fulfilling way than skimming social media.

Take a walk without headphones and listen to everyday life outside.

Imagine walking down the street after a lifetime of darkness and silence, being able to see and hear for the first ever time. Every sight and sound would be a marvel and a miracle. Why would you wear headphones?

Dogs barking, trees rustling, horns beeping, people talking, birds singing, leaves playing in the wind — are all reminders of the ongoing-ness of life and connection to each other in this present moment.

It’s what the Buddha meant when he said true happiness is not found in detaching from the world, but living fully in the here and now — in the marketplace and in everyday life.

When we live in the moment, we are truly living our lives from a place of presence, not imagination.

It helps us focus on what’s worth focussing on. It helps open creativity and ideas in our own pursuit of fulfilment and happiness.

Write a full and grateful ‘thanks’ instead of ‘thx’. It costs the same, and takes less than a second. Come on, if you mean thanks, say it.

Practicing gratitude has been shown to increase the production of dopamine and oxytocin in the brain.

Being sincere also helps lift the receiver of your gratitude.

Saying ‘sorry’ and ‘I love you’ to those whom you are sorry and love is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to add to happiness and inner peace.

2. What does my life stand for?

Does it stand for my internal values of doing good, of growth, wellbeing and happiness? Is it something I can be proud of, standing in my power even in the face of upheaval or turmoil?

Did I choose myself and my highest values? Or did I jump through hoops created by others and by fear, to sell out my own identity and power? Or to betray my soul and my values for a rush of belonging, attention or fame?

How much of your life is fully aligned with what you truly stand for? How much of your life is spent standing fully in your own power?

Do you suppress and silence your own inner voice, values and self-worth for the crowd?

Another way of looking at this: I was born capable of having an infinite number of values and potentialities. Why did I end up with the ones I have now?

Among other things, how those values and potentialities were narrowed down to where you are now is a function of what ‘system’ your ‘tribe’ determined was right for you.

It is also a function of how the closest members of your family dealt with life and the pressures those systems put on them.

It implanted beliefs into how you coped with, resisted or surrendered to this pressure.

If you tried to go against this conditioning, you were pressured to get back in line and do things the way they’ve “always been done.” Protection.

Fitting in was more important.

We sold our values, our power and ourselves for external acceptance.

In 2020 a 19 British girl committed suicide because her photos didn’t receive enough likes on social media. She believed “Without likes I am nothing”.

Doctor and author Gabor Mate describes a pandemic of depression, suicide and mental health issues amongst teenagers around the world in the last 10 years.

This is directly linked to the dramatic increase in social media use.

With the advent of digital communication and social media we have become increasingly isolated and withdrawn. Physical contact and interaction is lost. We seek external affirmation of our identity and self-worth, placing it in the fingertips of strangers and their keyboards.

The more we depend on external sources for our values and worth, the more we alienate ourselves from our truth and individuality.

Core internal values are suppressed and compensated for by addiction to external hits of dopamine and serotonin. This inevitably leads to internal discord, neurosis and depression.

Switch off your phone, laptop or electronic device for one hour in your free time. Just try it, no social media for a full hour. How difficult is it to do?

Look at how you react if no-one reads, sees or likes your post. Does it resonate with your inner self-worth or values?

What would you have done 15 years ago before social media?

How have you used your power for either your own good or for the greater good of your family, community or planet in the last day?

Remember social media survives by promoting values based on surface level beauty, appearance and emotional reaction over your health, values or wellbeing.

3. Am I happy?

You know the t-shirt…

Dance like nobody’s watching

Sing like you’re on a mountaintop

Love like you mean it

Work like you don’t need the money

Serve like it’s your soul mate

Laugh like a three year old. Loudly.

Be silly, don’t mind the little voice telling you to stay small.

Be honest with yourself and with others.

You have looked at the past and present. At how what you did or didn’t do, believed in or stood for added to your happiness and your life.

For an hour, take a notebook and look to the future.

Vishen Lakhiani of Mindvalley explains how we can nurture self-growth and happiness by asking ourselves:

· What do I want to experience?

· How do I want to grow?

· What do I want to contribute?

Let the answers to these questions be the basis on how you fill your life. Then you will truly live and truly know yourself.

We all start with the same 24 hours and generally the same capability to fill those 24 hours. We dont get them back. We can’t always choose how much energy we have, but we CAN choose what we spend it on.

Tick-Tock, half the year is gone.

Tick-tock, (for those in their late 30’s or early 40’s) half our lives are gone.

Choose yourself before it’s too late.