The Happiness of Imagining Yourself
“A rock pile cases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Five weeks from today, we’ll be celebrating January 1, 2010. It may still seem a long way off, but blink and it will be right in front of you. Between now and then a whole slew of articles about New Year’s Resolutions will start filling the blogs with advice on whether and how to make them, how to keep them, how to feel when you don’t.
All too often, we make our New Year’s resolutions at the last minute, without giving them any real thought, and, to be honest, without any real resolve. We half-heartedly name things we think we should begin doing more of, or things we think we should stop doing. And we go to bed thinking that somehow the next morning we’ll magically wake as a transformed being, filled with steely determination to make it so. On average, most people make it a whole week before they toss their resolutions to the wind.
Well, what if this year was different? What if you began now to evaluate your life and to think about the things you could do that would give you a soaring feeling of gladness just because you were doing them. If you were going to build a cathedral of your life, what would it look like? If you were going to create the juiciest, liveliest, most satisfied version of you, what kinds of things would you have to do to make it happen?
Positive psychology studies show that we’re happier when we have a sense of purpose in our lives, and when we’re moving toward meaningful objectives. Joy comes from growing, from learning new skills, from broadening our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual horizons. Why not start casting about in your imagination right now for possibilities you could move toward materializing, potentials you could develop, areas of your life you would like to develop, expand or explore?
Park all the “shoulds” on the sidelines, and start imagining the things that would be fun to do, the things that would really grab your interest, the things feel attractive and enriching and satisfying to you.
And once you get some ideas about what those things are, here’s a hint: You don’t have to wait until New Year’s to begin them. You can get going in their direction right this very now.
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