I was sitting with a dear friend of mine at work and we were talking about what makes us happy and how does our work contribute to our happiness. She mentioned that although she had many accolades at work, none of them ever featured in her list of happiest moments of her life. She said that happy moments for her would be a time when she went for a walk in the nature or had a great conversation with someone or when she travelled by herself. Curious, I looked within to see if that was the case with me too. Did my work not contribute to my happiness in my larger scheme of life?I figured that for me I had moments from work, from creativity, from people and extraordinary situations that counted for my happiest moments. It was clear that what truly, deeply mattered to me was creativity, people and a sense of accomplishment and what truly, deeply mattered to my friend was a quiet, peaceful time with herself or someone she loved. This insight was so intriguing that I carried it further with another friend asking him what were his happiest moments. He, true to himself, had a balance of people and accomplishments in his list of five happiest moments so far.

It felt like one of those Eureka moments for me. Although when I spoke about it, it sounded so commonsensical. Nonetheless, I figured I’d like to write about this and explore more. The reason why I thought this is so important is because it very clearly gives me an understanding about what matters the most to a person. And for self too, it gives a perspective on one would or should rather spend their life’s energies on if they are in pursuit of happiness. There’s a theme that we find in these 5 happiest moments. Therein is the key or a guide for our future actions.

Think about your day today? How was it? How many moments count for happy ones today? Could that be a feed for your tomorrow? Else, what would you want to add on a daily basis, that can add up to your happiness factor in a day (could be based on something from your happiest moments in life). It doesn’t have to be that if my day of marriage was the happiest – I’d want to get married everyday! J It could just mean that there is something about the person who I married or about the marriage itself that makes it count for my happiest moment. So how can I add to that factor in my everyday existence is the thought.

Think about your colleague or loved one. If you know their five (or key) happiest moments – you’ll know that as a person they are happiest when they deal with challenges and emerge – or when they are with people – or when they are by themselves doing something or the like. That would give you a clue in terms of how you could engage with them in a way that makes them happy and productive too. We don’t have to necessarily ask. People keep talking about things that make them happy quite often. Are they activity based, people based, situation based, recognition based, place based etc? You can know the criteria for motivation for that particular person. What a powerful way would that be to influence someone positively? We can create experiences that would matter the most to a person. So, I know when my friend comes home the next time, all I need to do is take her for a walk and engage in great conversations as we usually do. 🙂

4 Replies to “High Five!”

  1. Good one!!

    1. Thank you

  2. Bhawana Chopra 10 years ago

    Awesome, captured very well ! Enjoyed reading this 🙂

    1. Thank you

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: