4 Things I’ve Learned From Tracking My Happiness On A Daily Basis
Last December, I went to Park City, Utah for a ski vacation to celebrate a few birthdays within my circle of friends, which included my own 31st birthday. It was my first time skiing and it was as equally exhilarating as it was terrifying. I spent the weekend conquering the slopes (more like falling down the slopes), partying at the local pubs, and fellow-shipping with friends I rarely get to see. I affectionately called that weekend “Mountain Vegas.” However, my entire time in Utah wasn’t just dedicated to the Mountain Vegas experience. I also set aside time for reflection.
The focal point of my reflection was the past year of my life, which was my 30th year on this earth. My first year in my 30s happened to be one of the worst years of my life. I’m not going to spoil you with the details on why last year sucked, but a combination of things and events made it a tough year all around. So while I was on top of that mountain, I made a declaration that my 31st year will be better than my 30th. But how do I make that happen? My answer to this question was to make a conscious effort to live a happier life. However, I needed away to quantify my happiness to make sure that I am actually achieving my goals. In trying to figure out how to accomplish this, I came across the image at the beginning of this post, on Reddit, that gave me the perfect way to do just that.
Therefore I decided to track my happiness everyday of my 31st year of life. I would record what type of day I had, and any day that wasn’t deemed a “normal day”, I would write down a note on what made that day unique. I’ve been doing this for about five months now and here are some things l have learned about myself after tracking my happiness everyday.
My Job Ain’t It
When I look back on most of my days this year, I’ve noticed that they are “normal” days where nothing really happened. Most of those “normal” days were spent behind a desk from 8 am to 5 pm. Based on this revelation, I realized that I don’t really care for my job. I know that most people hate what they do, but that isn’t what I mean when I say I don’t care. What I mean is that I don’t hate my job, and I don’t like my job. I’m really indifferent to it. When I’m at work, everything that happens during the day doesn’t move me emotionally. Am I being challenged there mentally? Yes. Are my responsibilities significant enough where I’m learning skills to advance my career? Yes. Do some of the people annoy me there? Of course. But regardless of what happens during the day, as soon as I walk out those doors, I flush everything away as if I wasn’t there at all. This lets me know that my job isn’t fulfilling to me. It isn’t where I want to be in 10 years. It’s not where I want to be in 5 years to be honest. It doesn’t make me happy.
I’m An Active Participant In My Happiness
Since tracking my happiness, I’ve been more aware of what makes me happy and what doesn’t. As a result, I have actively tried to do things that make me happy on a daily basis. For example, I’ve started to pursue my passion of writing more seriously, not because I want to make a living out of it one day (even though that would be dope), but because writing genuinely makes me happy. I also have tried to go to the next level with my health. I really enjoy living a healthy lifestyle and the pursuit of that lifestyle really lifts my spirit. I believe tracking my happiness is making me become an active participant in being happy instead of waiting for something to happen. This has lead me to have more happier days this year than bad, according to my happiness tracker. The results speak for themselves!
My Bad Days Are Usually Based On Outside Circumstances
As of now, I have had 9 bad days this year. Based on the comments I wrote about those particular days, 7 were due to outside circumstances that I let affect me emotionally. Things that I can’t control but allowed to trespass behind my joyful demeanor. This is something that I must fix. There will be a ton of things that will happen in my life that I won’t be able to control. However, I will be able to control my reaction to it. This will be the key to truly living a happy life.
Time Flies By, I Really Shouldn’t Waste It
When you pay attention to your happiness on a daily basis, you realize how fast time drifts away. Days, turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months, at the blink of an eye. Tracking my happiness has made this notion more apparent than it has ever been. Life is too short to not do what makes you happy. That means I need to take more risks. That means I need to live outside my comfort zone. That means I need to start cultivating a life based on faith and not fear. These are all ingredients to living a life that is filled with happiness.
