A Happy Life Doesn't Happen On Accident—It Happens On Purpose

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On the morning of January 1, 2018, after I had finished writing in my journal, this thought came clearly into my mind: A happy life doesn't happen on accident—it happens on purpose.

I immediately got out my journal again and wrote these words down because it was such a profound thought. I realized once again that it is the choices we make today that determine whether we will feel happy or miserable tomorrow. 

I did a Google search to see if someone else had already shared it but couldn’t find that exact quote. However, there were other similar quotations online that were also inspiring. Below is an excerpt from an interesting article I found called, Living with Purpose: The Importance of Real Intent by Randall L. Ridd:

Purpose

Imagine for a moment you are in a lifeboat on the ocean, with nothing but rolling waves in every direction, as far as the eye can see. The boat is equipped with oars, but which direction would you row? Now imagine you’ve caught a glimpse of land. Now you know the direction you must go. Does seeing land give you both motivation and purpose? People who don’t maintain a clear sense of purpose are drifters. Drifters allow the tides of the world to decide where they are going.

Leo Tolstoy

The life of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, illustrates this point. Leo Tolstoy had a rocky youth. His parents died when he was about 13. Educated by his older brothers in the ways of alcohol, gambling, and promiscuity, Leo was less than diligent in his studies. At the age of 22, he began to feel that his life lacked real purpose, and he wrote in his journal, “I am living like a beast.” Two years later he wrote, “I am 24 years old and I still have done nothing.” Tolstoy’s dissatisfaction motivated him to begin a lifelong quest to find, mostly through trial and error, the purpose of his life—the why. Before he died at the age of 82, he concluded in his journal, “‘The whole meaning and joy of life,’ … lay in the search for perfection and understanding God’s will”—and, I would add, doing God’s will.

Avoiding Distractions—the Importance of Focus

How many times have you sat down at the computer to do homework or an assignment for work when suddenly up pops an ad for something that you had been shopping for recently? Then, as you are browsing the online stores, you notice that a few of your friends are online, so you begin chatting with them. Then you receive an alert that a friend has posted something on Facebook, and you just have to see what it is. Before you know it, you’ve lost valuable time and forgotten why you got on the computer in the first place. So many times we get distracted when we should have acted. Distractions rob you of time that could have been invested in doing good. The ability to focus helps us avoid distractions.