My Secret to a Happy Life

Continuous learning is the way

“My ultimate goal of life is to be happy”

All the other things are secondary. Succeeding in my personal and professional life is important but not at the cost of my happiness.

If I am not happy, it affects all areas of my life. Happiness is not something you chase, happiness is something you have.

“I believe that true happiness comes from personal growth”

Professional goals are materialistic. Sure they are important in life but they don’t give you everlasting happiness. The moment you achieve something, you want something else and the cycle never ends.

I used to be like this. I told myself that after graduating I would be happy. Then I applied for graduate school and said the same thing. However, somewhere between I found that I was unhappy and the reason was — I was not growing personally. I was focused too much on my work.

Therefore, I decided to change. I decided to learn and do something outside my professional life and my life changes forever.

Make continuous learning your priority

Try to learn different things. Utilize the full capacity of your brain. Your brain loves to learn different things.

“Diversity is like a spice in life”

I started learning guitar during the first year of my grad school. It took me one and a half years but somehow I pulled it. I learned guitar by myself without anybody’s help. I don’t care about professional accolades. They don’t fulfill my life.

I consider ‘learning guitar’ my proudest achievement.

During the pandemic, I started learning chess and it made me so happy. Chess is so amazing and it develops so many areas of the brain. I think I am the most focused while playing chess.

And, finally, I started writing on Medium. I always wanted to be a writer and now I am pursuing my dream. Becoming a writer is like a personal project for me.

I am so happy that I have been able to learn so many different things in the past 3 years. I will keep doing it. Some of my goals for the next five years are — learn piano, publish an e-book, and learn squash.

I can’t wait to learn those things. Learning anything new gives you so much self-confidence which helps you in other aspects of your life.

Recap

If you want to be happy, keep learning new things. Keep doing experiments and find things that make you happy.

For me, it is writing, chess and guitar. I will keep expanding this list.