The Secret to Being Happy Is…

Stop chasing the money. Stop chasing the ‘American Dream’. Chase your dream, your goals, your happiness.

"Follow Your Dreams" by Banksy

What if someone told you that the secret to being happier than you’ve ever been was to quit your job tomorrow? Would you do it? Would you have the guts to step into the unknown and give up your security blanket?

If your job is keeping you from doing what you love, find a way out. Don’t be scared, because things will work out in the end. It may lead to a complete shift in lifestyle and it isn’t easy, but overcoming that fear is the single greatest gift that you could give yourself.

First of all, your life will never be perfect, so stop chasing perfection. What you should chase are the experiences that lead to a more fulfilling life. That new car, those new jeans, that new pair of underwear and make your butt look super cute, don’t mean anything in the long run. In the end, your car will break down, your jeans will wear out, and that new underwear will become old and threadbare just like all the others out there. However, the experiences that you have will last for a lifetime.

Experiences don’t ever expire. They won’t ever make you feel fat and they won’t ever go out of style. The sooner that we’re able to realize that spending our time and money on the pursuit of these positive life experiences, the more quickly we can advance on the road to real happiness.

One hard truth is that the American Dream was manufactured. It’s something that’s been designed as a marketing tool to portray the greatness of America and our way of life. It’s a dream that’s perpetuated by consumerism.

Buy more, buy better, trust us, we know where you should spend your money.

Trying to keep up with the Jones’ will only leave you stressed and leading a life that’s filled with material things. Find your own path. Set your own goals. Smash through any obstacles that get in the way and fully dedicate yourself to the pursuit of real happiness.

Flying Your Freak Flag

What drives us to be different? To try different things, to try and make ourselves stand out from the crowd. The reason that I ask this, is that as I was sitting eating lunch this afternoon, I saw two teenagers who were dressed as anime characters. Crazy hair. Weird clothes. The whole shebang. After the initial snide comments rolled through my head, I really thought about why it is that they would want to have everyone looking at them like they were freaks.
The answer I came up with, is that it’s not at all about r attention. What it’s really about is the attempt to find oneself. To discover what it is that makes you important to yourself. It helps us define our place in society. Sometimes that place is on the outside, away from the status quo.
It’s this type of courageous self discovery that has driven some of the greatest inventors and entrepreneurs to build the most influential products and companies that the world has ever seen. And yet, as a society, we seek to crush this journey if discovery into a mold. We want people to turn out how we think they should be versus how they were meant to be.
I think that it’s time that we change this idea. Let people be who they are. Be who ore meant to be. Let your freak flag fly. If you think that pink hair and furry arm covers are intrinsically attached to your personality, then by all means. My point is, we should support this discovery. Figuring it who we are is a combination of failure, hard lessons, and more failure. But those tiny successes, those small bits and pieces of goals achieved and lessons learned combine to make some damn good people. Let them be interesting. Let them be themselves.

Opportunist is Not a Dirty Word

 

opportunist |ˌäpərˈt(y)o͞onist|

noun

a person who exploits circumstances to gain immediate advantage rather than being guided by consistent principles or plans: most burglaries are committed by casual opportunists.

 

 

 

Why is it that we’ve decided to make opportunist such a hated word? Whats’ wrong with being an opportunist? By it’s very definition, it’s a person, or thing, that looks for an immediate opening and exploits it to gain advantage. Competitive advantage is what breeds success. That edge that makes you more appealing or mor eefficient than the competition.

So what’s an entrepreneur if not, at least partially, an opportunist? 

Entrepreneurs, and some of the most sucessful business people in the world today, got that way by constantly seeking and exploiting new opportunities. New places to sell their goods. New markets to cater to. Emerging needs to be addressed. Finding the chink in the armor and exploiting it  (some would call it leveraging because it doesn’t sound quite as bad) to gain a power position.

I myself am proud of being an opportunist. I see an opening, and I take it. It’s how I’ve managed to gain almost all of the movement in my own career. It wasn’t because someone handed something to me because of all of my hard work and dedication.

In my experience, hard work is highly undervalued by most employers. Doing your job is great, but for some reason, when you are great in a position, there’s a tendancy for superiors to let you stagnate. In other words, they’re gaining from what you’re doing. Either it’s making them look good, or it’s making them money, so you’re going to stay right where you are. 

Seek opportunity. Seek advantage. Be ruthless. Be an opportunist.