As reflective individuals are wont to do, I often find myself reassessing the values and goals that shape my life. It’s a way of keeping myself on track, and of making subtle course corrections as my vision changes (which is not to imply my vision always feels at all clear).
It was in this mindset that I stumbled upon Judith Wright’s book, The One Decision, at the local independent bookstore. The book seems to belong to the genre of soft, neatly packaged self-help late-night infomercials; a subsequent glance at her website, with Judith seminars, forum boards, and companion books only confirmed this impression. While I’m sure many pople find these books helpful, this style of self-help media I find off-putting. Nonetheless, the point of her book, as I gather from reading the dustflap, is important: we should find the “one decision” that endows our life with a purpose and theme meaningful to us. This is not a novel idea, but it is something we tend to forget in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
Then today, in the aftermath of recent studies about how Americans have fewer intimate ties than in the past, The Washington Post ran a story on happiness. Happiness, it seems, consists of one’s happiness set-point, one’s conditions, and one’s voluntary activities. It is the third of these that we have the most immediate control over, and it covers such activities as socialization, time alone, or anything else that engages us in “flow.” The article even cites the gross national happines index of Bhutan.
What is your purpose? What makes you happy?
