What We Pay Attention To – A Delicate Balance for Living a Happy Life

I believe it is safe to assume that most of us want to live a happy life. Nonetheless, our desire and reality sometimes are not the same. Thus an overarching question for many of us is, “What do I have to do to live a happy life?” Interestingly, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD) stated, “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” (And for the record, I agree with him – he makes an excellent point.) To wit, the website, e-Happy Life, offers some excellent suggestions they refer to as Daily Disciplines:

• Eat Healthy Meals
• Take Vitamin Supplements
• Work Effectively giving 100% effort
• Focused Time with Loved One
• Focused Family Time
• Exercise
• Reading for Education
• Audio Tape Learning
• Financial Management
• Sharing with others
• Time for Spirituality
• Healthy Sleep Habits

On his website, Happy Life Coaching, Michele Azenzer says, “I am a Wellness and Life Coach. I partner with enthusiastic and sharp minded individuals to help them DESIGN THEIR LIVES both personally and professionally… I have found that most people do not design their lives – they just go with what life offers and make the best of it. However, I believe everyone has the ability to design their life they way they want it.”

In my poop-psych book, Mom and Dad’s Pearls of Wisdom: You Gotta Love ’Em, I share many stories about my interactions and conversations with my mom and dad, concluding with a “pearl of wisdom” they gave to me. One not in that book (but will be in its next edition) is about the time my dad said to me, “Life’s easy… if you know what to pay attention to.”

Some of you may be familiar with my pop-psych book, Living Life, Anyway. The double entendre in the title of it captures it all: Living Life is what it’s all about– not existing through life or struggling through life, but living life. Moreover, you can live your life anyway – anyway meaning “any way you want to live your life” and anyway meaning “in spite of the unwanted and undeserved dirty deals your life may have handed you.” Seriously and humorously, the book’s 22 chapters address living life. Pursuant to the issues addressed in this Post, Chapter Four, titled, “Living Life, Autonomously.” begins with the following paragraph:

In many ways, living a happy life is like eating a good spaghetti dinner: if you don’t put enough sauce on the spaghetti, it doesn’t taste good; if you put too much sauce on it, it doesn’t taste good; but if you put just the right amount of sauce on it, magnificio! One of the major themes of this book, if you have not noticed it yet, is that one of life’s greatest challenges is finding just the right amount or place between two extremes. Like the spaghetti sauce metaphor, the “not enough versus too much” paradigm can be witnessed and experienced throughout life, such as, for instance, with regard to running, eating, drinking, and a wide variety of other important aspects of living. An example of the criticalness of this paradigm relates to how much attention a person does or does not pay attention to himself or herself. If I pay too much attention to another person, other people, or things, and not enough attention to myself, I can find myself in trouble; likewise, if I do not pay enough attention to another person, other people or things, and too much attention to myself, I also can find myself in trouble. Again, finding that balance between two extremes is the paramount challenge. (p. 35)

As I say in this chapter, “If I pay too much attention to another person, other people or things, and not enough attention to myself, I can find myself in trouble; likewise, if I do not pay enough attention to another person, other people or things, and too much attention to myself, I also can find myself in trouble.”

Question: Have you ever found yourself in this “Am I paying enough or too much attention to the right things?” problem?

Bill