If you are anything like me, it’s easy to confuse the goal of Having The Good Life with Living The Good Life. What is the difference between the two? To me, HAVING The Good Life implies a level of materialism and it often becomes a never-ending search for the next thing we hope will provide more happiness. However; if we find our True North and Passion, we can learn how to LIVE The Good Life, so that we reap the most enjoyment possible during the precious little time we spend on this planet.
Ask people what they want in life, and often you’ll hear some variation of this answer: to be happy. But what is it that makes us happy? Once our physiological and safety needs are met, the desire for pleasure begins to grow stronger. Ironically the more pleasure we find the more difficult it becomes to find. Every moment of enjoyment ultimately fades.
Chasing pleasure feels good in the moment yet it doesn’t bring lasting happiness. Every vacation ends; every fun event comes and goes. Even big “wins” like, a job promotion, winning the lottery and even holding a loved one close can only make us happy for a short time before we go back to our baseline level of happiness.
We all wish life was a never-ending stream of joyful moments yet it’s not. Life is full of ups and downs, celebrations and sorrows, wins and losses. So how do we find the kind of happiness and satisfaction that lasts even through the low moments?
What can help us to live a more satisfying life and feel the most fulfilled is to find something we care about more than we care about pain or discomfort. Something that will give our lives meaning. In other words, we need to find something we are passionate about.
Finding your passion sounds easy, right? Maybe you already know what yours is. But what does it mean to be passionate about something? It’s more than something we like to do or something that sounds like a lot of fun. Most of us understand passion to mean intense love, desire, infatuation, or enthusiasm. An athlete will gladly endure the pain and discomfort of training so they can achieve their goals. A musician might spend years playing music no one but them will hear. They might say this is their passion because they love it. But more importantly; it’s the passion that adds meaning to life.
If we haven’t found our passion yet, we can follow our internal compass to True North. True North is our orienting point, a fixed point in a spinning world. True North is where our values, beliefs, and sense-of-purpose meet. This is where our most authentic or whole self resides. Once we become aware of our True North, we are closer to understanding where our unaffected passions lie so that we can pursue those passions and Live Our Best Lives.