Are You Happy? Increase Your Happiness of 91% with 4 Simple Goals and 1 Solution

 

Are you still in a place that you hate or did you buy a one-way  ticket to Costa Rica ? (ok let’s say Lisbon…)

So we have to move somewhere else to break the chain and be happy?

Firstly:

What is happiness ?

 

The old cliché Caribbean beach?

 

The mansion?

 

 

The Lamborghini?

 

All of three…or none?

How can we define it?

Searching for happiness has been what always pushed the men to improve their conditions.

It is the progress, the man on the moon, the airplanes, the internet, you, reading me thousand of miles away.
But this is no true for everyone, there are many people whose life is “ok”: they are satisfied for what they have.
The progress doesn’t originate from them but from those who are disruptive.
So what’s the target to be happy?
The middle? “In media stat virtus” ? Or the continuous searching for improvement?
There is no universal answer; it’s up to you; on what you feel and motivate you through the day.

Once a friend of mine told me: “When I was a kid I was poor, spending my time going to the beach and I was happy. When I grew up I went to America, saw what’s behind the wall and I was screwed”(mean he got the shopping, consuming bug, ended up in debit, big house, car…you know how it works).
Now that kid would like to go back to that beach he tried to to leave…and he’s not alone.

Everything boil down to Four Steps and One Solution

Do you remember WMJHH?

WHERE: Living in the place of your dream
MONEY: Be financially independent
JOB: Escape the 9-5 life of cubicle slavery for…well…nothing…
HEALTH: Be healthy, eat better…exercise more…lose weight
HAPPY: Think outside your box and stretching that comfort zone that keep you stuck in your city, state, country, sad life etc

Thus you and me are happy if we reach this Four Goals:

  1. Do what we love
  2. In a place that we love
  3. With people we love
  4. In good health

The solution? Financial Independence!

Money buys happiness?

Well…YES!

YES

YES

Enough Money buys FREEDOM

 

Enough money…the so-called the F-you money by JL Collins

 

 

FREEDOM from a 9am-5pm-65y you hate so…yes MONEY can buy FREEDOM so happiness

 

Please carve this in your brain…MONEY DON’T BUY HAPPINESS per se.

You don’t believe me right…? It’s OK, nobody does…

So….make this simple test…be realistic and sincere…list down the 10 best memories of your life…don’t read any further before moving forward..ready? …go…

(Did you cheat or really got the ten points…?)

I bet a diet soda (well we try to save some money here, correct?) that  none of them were money related.

I bet they were instead memories of time spent with people you love and not the moment you bought some expensive toys.
I bet you were happy when you were mentally free to enjoy those moments.
Free from the heavy worries about a job, a deadline, a mortgage, a bill, a jerky boss.

So the equation is pretty simple

HAPPINESS=FREEDOM

And FREEDOM is reached through FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE  that is reached either increasing our income or reducing our expenses until we can  live off from our saving.

So…

FREEDOM=FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE=MAKING MORE MONEY & SPENDING LESS MONEY (until reaching a point to live off from our saving)

So part of the equation is FREEDOM=SPENDING LESS MONEY (to reach financial independence)

HAPPINESS=SPENDING LESS MONEY

as simple as that

instead we think the opposite…we think

HAPPINESS=SPENDING MORE MONEY @@@!!!

…ending up broke…

But let’s see the second part of the equation

HAPPINESS=MAKING MORE MONEY

We can do that

  1. Increasing our hourly wage or working more…
    It can be more fun (do what you love) or less fun (do what you hate)

If you reach it doing what you love congratulations! no need to read any further (or you can just to see how we are doing) otherwise keep grinding…

Look it’s a simple as that:

 

 

If you are in the intersection of the three circles…bingo! The WORLD IS YOURS!
in this categories typically fall top athletes, famous doctors, actors, super nerdy tech guy and many other people maybe not so famous.

From my experience the 1% of the population

You love something, you are talented to do it, that activity pays good money…

 

THIS IS YOUR GOAL!

 

Let’s do some real case examples

1) Teacher – Administrative
you might love it and be talented but unless you are teaching in some very top university around the world chances are slim that you make a good money.
Poor but happy…can be a good compromise…but watch out that you have only one bullet left…if one day you will hate your job you will be in big troubles..poor and sad!

And watch out next dentist bill…or if your car breaks down…or if you have to change your roof.
You don’t wanna be there…believe me

2) Engineers
you likely make good money and you must be skilled (because being an engineer require to be skilled) but unless you are a super nerdy tech guy (I would say 50% of engineer population) you cant love such dry and boring job.
We are in the Dilbert zone here…white collars good money job where some people are happy and some are miserable
In my view if you are in the intersections the happiness is still limited by the lifestyle of the engineers but maybe I am wrong…

3) Marketing or Sales  Engineer
Better than 3…you might actually doing cool stuff here detached to the technical boring aspect of the job
but you have still to show up at the job even thought you will surely have some flexibility in terms of work hours (we want to pamper our brilliant guys right?)

You might be in the magic intersection here…

4) Doctors
Depending on the country they operate they might have a nice salary and directly proportional to their stress and responsibility.
Many might love this job that has a big degree of empathy and human connections with the patient.

It can indeed be the ideal situation as well

5) Low/minimum wage jobs
Yes…the adage says you can be poor and happy…but not at this extent especially if you are in the USA or in most part of Asia where being at low/minimum wage means starving and not even access basic health care coverage. If you are in this category I hope you are in some European country with universal health care, ideally far from the big expensive metropolis.

In this category you are in the perifery of every circle
No money, no passions, no talents.
You might be ok to be here if you expenses are really low, if you have other interest and if the time schedule is very short and flexible (and again if you are not in the USA) but generally speaking you are barely surviving here, poor and sad.

6) Fashion, luxury business
people at the top of this categories are in the ideal spot but also the lower level one might make good money, in a nice and cool environment.

 

7) Entrepreneur
The good think is that you don’t have a nasty boss
The bad is that you might have hundreds of those nasty bosses (your customers) and work hundreds of hours per week.

The solution? do what you love for a super high hourly wage
Easy? no
Feasible ? Yes
If you get the solution, congratulations! you get the ideal job
Otherwise keep pushing…but miserably

So what’s the point ?

should we  all be talented, passionate and rich and 100% happy ?
Well yes

First step first…let’s reach the first 91% f happiness getting back 8-10 hours a day of freedom through FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. 

Head down please …keep working in your boring job, save and earn how much as you can to reach the FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE, gain freedom from something you don’t like…and make  a giant first step toward happiness.

In next post I will talk how  to reach this financial independence and what to do with this new freedom….

PS
if you cannot wait for my next post, there are EXCELLENT blogs on financial independence you can check out in Freedom recommends…enjoy the reading!

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