There are so many people in the world trying to answer this question. Some of then have the right idea and some are way off base. Let’s see what you think of this…
If you watch a few rock and roll or rap videos, you will note that the version of happiness being sold to children the world over is all about leisure time to burn, disposable money and loads of friends whose names you don’t even know. Still for others, it is all about how many followers you have.
The internet is chock full of people who seek attention for the sake of attention alone even though it is empty and devoid of meaning and under the surface, everyone knows it.
I recently asked a young person what they thought happiness was, and he could not give me a straight answer. He hemmed and hawed and told me about money, fame, sex and drugs, but failed to produce a substantive response.
I see patients every single day of my life, and I always ask the following question. “Are you depressed or anxious?” And the responses I get might surprise you.
You see, I see basically two types of patients. Type 1 – people who are chronically ill and cannot work, and Type 2 – people who have lived long and industrious lives and have now retired. Guess which group are the happiest… Among both groups there is both happiness and depression, but the overwhelming majority of happy people are those who DO something productive every single day. Among both groups, those who cannot are by far beyond, depressed.
Are you looking for the secret to long life and happiness? Here it is… first you must find that thing that you love to do more than anything else, then you have to figure out a way to make a living doing it. You see, in the end, it doesn’t matter how much money or cars or toys or children you have. It doesn’t matter which golf club you belong to, and when it comes right down to it, it doesn’t even matter who you wind up surrounded by… in the end, your satisfaction and your happiness with your life will be determined almost exclusively by what you have “DONE” with it.
Who you’ve spend your life with can enhance your joy, but your sense of satisfaction with your life is inexorably tied to your sense of meaningful accomplishment.
When people hit the redneck lottery and can suddenly afford to sit around and do nothing, we say they’re “living the dream.” But for most, doing nothing is a nightmare. Doing nothing is not merely a nightmare, its an insidious beast that gnaws away at your sanity and robs you of your sense of well-being. I don’t care how much you think you want to do nothing, you are wrong. You may enjoy a life of leisure for a week or two, but once you’ve had your fill of television and facebook drama, you will start to develop a sadness that if left unchecked, may grow into full blown depression. It can take your sanity and eventually, even your life.
I can’t point to a chart or a graph and say, “Look! I’m right, this science proves it!” But is that even necessary? After all, I see the results over and over played out before my eyes. People who have no meaningful and purposeful activities in their lives slowly but surely, become depressed, and can actually lose their will to live. One of the most common things I hear among the 80 – 90 year old crowd is this… “I feel useless, I’m simply waiting to die.”
Consider this example… Wanda and Ed used to be a merchants. They owned a small but thriving neighborhood hardware store for 45 years until they retired and sold it around the age of 70, within a few years, Ed never found another activity that gave his life purpose and meaning, and he simply didn’t survive long as a man of leisure. He fell into depression, and when faced with cancer, he easily succumbed.
Wanda had young grandchildren to help with, so it eased the transition into retirement being so busy with children, but those children grew up, moved away by the time she hit her early 80’s and they started families of their own far away. She was always an avid reader and used to love to play golf, but arthritis took away her golf swing, and macular degeneration has taken away her ability to read. Now, she listens to television most of the time and hopes for a few phone calls a week from loved ones. She has slowly slipped into depression and now, for the most part, she believes that life holds little meaning. This story is very typical of retirees. The only way to truly survive retirement is to never retire.
Knowing what we know about this phenomenon of developing mental illness (depression) after retirement, why on earth would we ever teach children to look forward to it? Why would we ever advise them to seek it? Why would we ever lead them to believe that “not working” is good for them? Why do we perpetuate this myth that living a life of leisure is somehow desirable or healthy?
Leisure, like any vice should be taken in small amounts, savored and cherished, then put away. It should be the icing on the cake of life. Ever bit into a cake with too much icing? Makes your teeth ache and your stomach turn. Same thing with too much free time.
Take as many vacations as you find through trial and error, to be healthy for you and your family, recharge, refresh, and then get the heck back to work and love what you do every single day. Find passions, take risks and keep building daily because the moment you stop, you begin to die.
