Here or There? Finding Happiness & Joy in Challenging Times
“If you want to experience happiness, choose to be happy HERE because, right now, you can’t be anywhere else.”
In their book, The Gap and The Gain, Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan share two contrasting ways that we can view our progress in life: we can measure ourselves in relation to our goals (the “gap”) or we can measure ourselves in relation to how far we've come (the “gain”). When we measure the gap, we always feel like we've fallen short. It is a moving horizon and we never arrive. When we celebrate the gain, the enthusiasm it generates becomes the fuel for even more wins.
When you’re in The Gap, you feel as though you haven’t accomplished anything at all. This is because even though you’ve moved forward, the ideal remains distant from you. The ideal is a moving target. It might even get bigger, leaving you worse off than where you started if you measure against it. You’ve also used up time and energy getting to where you are, so if you don’t measure the progress, you’ll feel like you’ve wasted that time and energy and have fallen even further behind. Dan Sullivan
As I was reading the book, it struck me that I need to rethink how I approach life. It really hit home when Hardy shared another way to look at the gap and the gain: the “here” and the “there”. The past couple of years have been tremendously challenging for all of us. I have a constant internal conversation going on and there is a lot of chatter about how much better things will be when ___ (fill in the blank). I find myself frequently thinking that when I get “there”, I will be happy. I see myself in the gap and I see the people around me in the gap. When I __ or when they __, life will be amazing. I will be happy. I would rejoice!
What would happen if I could find joy here? Right here. Right now. It is a choice. Which direction will I focus: on all the things that are missing compared to “there” OR on celebrating all the wins that got me "here”"? This idea has been around for a long time. A couple of thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances.” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
It’s a simple concept. The ramifications are life changing.
CYBDo (See, Why, Be, Do)
See: How does your world look differently when you choose to celebrate the WINS that got you HERE?
Why: Why does finding joy where you are matter to you? To your family? To your friends? To your work?
Be: How does this change who you want to “be”.
Do: What is the simplest step you could take to apply this concept to your life?