The intersection of the secret of happiness, how you don’t get to choose your mission and how different missions call different people different ways leads to some people being happier than others at any given moment. This is why it’s so important to latch on to an unmet need or a new way of connecting with people’s hearts, minds or souls.
The Secret of Happiness
Happiness is good. We learned from a Harvard study that it’s three goods: Doing good for others; Doing things you are good at and; Doing good for yourself. Thus, cherish your most important relationships and be a contribution. Do more of what you’re good at and less of what you’re not so good at. Take care of yourself, your health and well-being, your financial security and your work/life balance.
You Don’t Get to Choose Your Mission
The lesson from Kate’s Farms and others is that mission is not a choice. It’s dictated by others’ needs. Sometimes those others give you a mission or sometimes it hits you over the head so hard you can’t miss it. At other times you have to figure it out yourself whether it’s a quiet voice struggling to be heard or a fleeting image crying to be seen. Either way, it’s there, trying to get you mad enough to do something and this is a journey of discovery, not creation.
Different Missions Call In Different Ways
This past weekend I was privileged to attend HATCH at Moonlight Basin in Montana, part of cross-pollinating diverse creative minds in service of HATCHing a better world. I was struck by the difference between people that were deeply engaged with their personal missions and those that were searching.