Читать книгу Finding Our Happiness Flow - Dr. Robert Ph.D. Puff PhD - Страница 7

Many years ago, when I was working toward my first master’s degree at Princeton, I had an experience that changed my life and put me on a new path on how to live. I had accomplished much at Princeton: I was graduating with honors, I had won many awards for my research work, and I had been accepted into one of the top PhD clinical psychology programs in the United States. All seemed to be going well. But . . .

On a beautiful spring day, one of my last at Princeton, I decided to go to a park and just hang out for a few hours. The day was pristine, and I lay on my back on the grass, just gazing up at the sky and the trees. This moment spent lying on the lawn was the most beautiful experience I’d had during my entire stay at Princeton.

But the enjoyment turned bittersweet as I realized that, although I had been at the university for almost three years, I had never done this and I had missed out on just being: being present and enjoying nature and my surroundings. I had been so busy achieving that I had never paused to enjoy the simple wonders of the campus. It was a very sad experience for me but one that pushed me forward and helped me to start changing the way I lived my life. Of course, I didn’t undergo an overnight change, but I did begin to slow down and enjoy the journey. Besides achieving, I started enjoying the process of moving forward, growing, and just being. I began to appreciate nature and life as it happens right here, right now.

When I moved to California upon graduating from Princeton, I discovered beautiful hiking trails, and I found many people in my doctoral program that would join me on different days for long walks. I was truly committed to take the time to enjoy life, instead of only focusing on achieving. And I wasn’t alone. When I started exploring the trails, I probably had about ten people from my doctoral program who would hike with me at different times, on different days. It was so beautiful hiking on the hills and the mountains. Yet at the end of the program, I couldn’t find one fellow student who had the time to go hiking anymore. Instead, I had to find other people who would join me; these people had obviously learned to enjoy the journey of life.

One of the key factors of happiness is that we do need to enjoy the journey, no matter what is happening in our lives. If we are on that achievement track, if we are trying to make money, earn a degree, achieve fame, etc., we still need to enjoy life along the way. It isn’t that it is wrong to achieve, but it’s wrong to miss out on life as we achieve. The path of achievement-driven gratification leads to a very empty, sad life.

Take pleasure in life, get out, be with friends, and embrace nature. It is important to enjoy the journey, to enjoy life as we achieve; we can do both. We have a tendency to cause our achievements and our goals to supersede living and loving life right here, right now. Often we say, “Someday I’ll slow down. Someday I’ll enjoy life, but right now, I need to achieve. I need to make it so I have time to slow down when I reach my goals. When I do reach my goals, then I’ll slow down and enjoy life.”

But why not achieve while slowing down a bit to enjoy the journey? We may reach our goals a little bit later, but we will be in much better shape if we take time for happiness along the way. And if life doesn’t turn out the way we expected, it won’t bother us as much because we had all that pleasure while working for the end. It’s a win/win situation! We work towards our goals AND enjoy our journey.

Ultimately, what helps us is our passion. We must love our goals simply because we like working towards them. So even if we do not reach our goals, we will have loved what we were doing all along. If our goals don’t work out, well, then we will just move on to the next dream and the next satisfying journey.