The journey toward a more fulfilling life
I was recently reading an article on happiness in America. The individuals moved out of America and became happier in the process. They stated, “it turns out that we don’t have mental health issues, we simply needed to be out of America.” This sounded strange to me. After all, America is the country that everyone wants to enter, not leave. However, I wanted to dissect this statement and figure out the root cause of it. It’s something that I’ve heard from friends and family that live abroad.
It turns out that I didn’t have to think much about it. When you hear their dream scenarios, it’s living in a small community where the emphasis is on “walking” and “grilling.” It’s not meant to be a joke. The amount of times that my father-in-law has stated that all he does when he’s in his house in Europe is grill is now numbering in the hundreds.
What do we do here? Even those of us that are comfortable enough financially to not worry about feeding our children stress out. Why? Because of this purchase-mentality. Most of us get suckered into it. How many times have you said, “as soon as I make this much money, this is what I’ll get?” How many times do we eat out? How many times do we shop for the fun of it? How many times have you purchased a new vehicle and immediately started looking for your next one? How about your home?
If the key to happiness is just to grill and walk, then most of us have that covered. Realign your thinking and tell yourself that this is all you want to do and you’ll see your stress slowly start to disappear. Disclaimer, I understand that people have real stress in their life…this is for those that have superficial stress…stress that can be controlled by wanting less.
And look at that. We’ve come to the same conclusion that most psychologists will tell you to do. Be happy with what you have. Imagine a scenario where you can grill every day, maybe play a little bit of guitar, and enjoy your life. How amazing does that sound? Sounds pretty good to me. You don’t have to worry that you just spent a $100 on dinner. Who cares about going out? You have your grill. Money continues to accumulate in your bank account and your stress level continues to reduce. Doesn’t that sound nice?
If you think about it, that’s what America is known for. Sunday BBQs and enjoying your time with friends and family at home. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t have to visit a new place to post on social media. You can post your BBQ on there and people will love it just as much. They might even come over and see you in person.