Shri Jagat Singh Bisht
(Master Teacher: Happiness & Well-Being, Laughter Yoga Master Trainer, Author, Blogger, Educator, and Speaker.)
Authored six books on happiness: Cultivating Happiness, Nirvana – The Highest Happiness, Meditate Like the Buddha, Mission Happiness, A Flourishing Life, and The Little Book of Happiness. He served in a bank for thirty-five years and has been propagating happiness and well-being among people for the past twenty years. He is on a mission – Mission Happiness!
☆ Positive Education # 07: Positive Purpose ☆
A meaningful life
“They only live who live for others.”
Swami Vivekananda
Meaning, or purpose, is an important element of happiness and well-being. You cannot imagine a life of authentic happiness without meaning, or connection to something larger than life.
We derive meaning by developing the best within us and serving something beyond ourselves.
It is our duty to take care of our body and mind. Equally important is the welfare of all other beings around us.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find your self is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
Martin Seligman defines a “meaningful life” in these words:
“The meaningful life consists in belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self, and humanity creates all the positive institutions to allow this: religion, political party, being green, the Boy Scouts, or the family.”
Finding Meaning in Work
We spend a large part of our life working. We are talking of work in a broader context – work in the office or a factory, working as a student (study), raising children and single parenting, working in the fields, and milking cows.
In the modern world, people can find goals and flow in many settings, but most people find most of their flow, or deep engagement, at work.
Thomas Carlyle wrote, “Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
When asked for his recipe for happiness, Sigmund Freud gave a very short but sensible answer, “work and love.”
It is true that if one finds flow in work, and in relations with other people, one is well on the way toward improving the quality of life.
In Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, once people have satisfied their physical needs, such as food and safety, they move on to needs for love and then esteem, which is earned mostly through one’s work.
People approach their work in one of the three ways: as a job, career, or calling.
Jonathan Haidt describes them, “If you see work as a job, you do it only for money, you look at the clock frequently while dreaming about the weekend ahead, and you probably pursue hobbies, which satisfy your effectance needs more thoroughly than does your work.
“If you see your work as a career, you have larger goals of advancement, promotion, and prestige. The pursuit of these goals energizes you and you sometimes take work home with you because you want to get the job done properly. Yet, at times, you wonder why you work so hard.
“If you see your work as a calling, however, you find your work intrinsically fulfilling – you are not doing it to achieve something else. You see your work as contributing to the greater good or as playing a role in some larger enterprise the worth of which seems obvious to you.”
Csikszentmihalyi observes, “Occasionally cultures evolve in such a way as to make every day productive chores as close to flow activities as possible. There are groups in which both work and family life are challenging, yet harmoniously integrated.
“The most striking feature of such places is that those who live there seldom distinguish work from free time. It could be said that they work sixteen hours a day each day, but then it could also be argued that they never work.”
Leo Tolstoy wrote, “One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one’s work.”
Finding Meaning in Life
“That is happiness – to be dissolved into something complete and great.”
Willa Cather
Researchers believe that a genuine sense of meaning in life must be rooted in a person’s own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Blindly embracing someone else’s sense of meaning won’t bring about happiness and growth.
Life is more meaningful when you are pursuing goals that are harmonious and within reach – for example, when you have the time, the ability, and the energy to devote to your most important goals, whether those goals involve rearing children or developing as a writer.
“We all have a journey to make in our lives, in search of our meaning or ‘song’: finding our path, if a human one, will make us happy. Not finding it, makes for an aimless life.”
Anthony Seldon
Creativity – in the arts, humanities, and sciences and even in self-discovery – can impart a sense of meaning.
Religion, spirituality, and faith have been developed as pathways leading to creating meaning in life.
You can choose a life built around increasing knowledge, learning, teaching, educating your children, science, literature, journalism, and so many more opportunities.
One can carve a life around increasing one’s power through technology, engineering, construction, health services, or manufacturing.
You can contribute your services for increasing goodness through the law, policing, firefighting, religion, ethics, politics, national service, or charity.
Either find work that is meaningful or find something meaningful in your work.
Serve the humans who are suffering and need healing. Prevent cruelty to animals. Be instrumental in educating of the poor.
Take care of the girl child in the developing countries. Rescue child labourers from bondage. Feed those who are hungry and starving.
Teach yoga and meditation to the ailing and those suffering from trauma. Give them a healing touch.
Create awareness about sustainable development, green technologies, and environmental resources management.
“Practicing compassion, caring for others, and sharing their problems, lays the foundation for a meaningful life, not only at the level of the individual, family or community, but also for humanity as a whole.”
Dalai Lama
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
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Master Teacher: Happiness & Well-Being, Laughter Yoga Master Trainer, Author, Blogger, Educator, and Speaker
Founder
A Pathway to Authentic Happiness, Well-Being & A Fulfilling Life! We teach skills to lead a healthy, happy and meaningful life.
The Science of Happiness (Positive Psychology), Meditation, Yoga, Spirituality and Laughter Yoga. We conduct talks, seminars, workshops, retreats and training.
≈ Editor – Shri Hemant Bawankar/Editor (English) – Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM
