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You Can Only Balance Yourself and Your Life
Trying to balance other people’s lives will drive you mad.
I’m going to make a statement that you might not like to read, but it’s a true statement. The quest for happiness is seldom the true life quest that anyone undertakes.
What does that mean? It means that happiness, in and of itself, is not an end-all be-all matter. Happiness comes and goes, ebbs and flows. Often, something that makes you happy might have an instantaneous impact on you, but then it quickly fades. Not because it’s taken away by something, but because that’s the nature of happiness.
I’m not as cynical about happiness as some. There’s a classic Denis Leary comedy routine where his take on happiness is this:
“Happiness comes in small doses folks. It’s a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm.”
Leary concludes by telling you that the above is it, then it’s back to the grind. While I agree that all of the above are things that bring happiness, I think there is a lot more to happiness than such quick, finite snapshots.
More than that, though, I think there is a better, more achievable metric to strive for above and beyond happiness. That would be contentment and balance.
