My Secret to Happiness

I suspect that most people are unhappy to a greater or lesser degree. They are unhappy because they don't know how to achieve happiness. Worse, they do things that they think will lead to happiness and instead achieve the opposite result.

I'm going to tell you the secret to happiness. I discovered it in my youth and it's so simple that I'm amazed that it's not universally known.

In my mid twenties, I achieved a lifelong dream when I acquired the necessary credentials to become a professional pilot. I was only on the first rung of a tall ladder but at least I was on the ladder and my future was in sight and it thrilled me.

I accepted my sister's invitation to come stay with her for awhile in New Mexico. My sister, her husband and their neighbors were all relics of the '60's. Flower children and 'hippies' who hadn't joined us in the next decade yet. They lived in homemade log cabins in a remote valley near Guadalupita.

While there I got a job as a cowboy on a small ranch in Mora and worked for $10 per day plus meals and a patch of floor upon which to spread my bedroll.

In time I saved enough money to put gas in my old Ford Cortina, with the oil light and water light frequently illuminating my dashboard, and go searching for my first flying job.

In Albuquerque, I landed a job as a flight instructor with a small flying school. I started my career with $15 in my pocket, a homemade loaf of bread, jar of pickled beets and sack of potatoes with which my sister had sent me off and I lived in a pup tent at a campground a few miles outside the city. I was a member of the class known as 'the working poor'...and I was happier than I'd ever been before.

I had neither the proverbial pot nor the window. My sole indulgence was breakfast at a diner where I could get a 'short stack' and a cup of coffee for $1.25. I was undeniably impoverished but I was nearly in a state of bliss. How could this be?

I had stumbled upon the secret to happiness:

If you want and need LESS than you can provide for yourself, you will be happy.

Unhappiness is the result of wanting what you can't have...yet.

I was exactly where I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted to do at that moment and all my needs were met to my satisfaction. In the decades since then, my wants and needs have increased but so has my ability to provide them for myself.

Whenever my desires have exceeded my ability to meet them, I stumbled and the resultant stress has made me unhappy until I've reminded myself of the basic truth about happiness and returned to the path.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that you shouldn't set goals beyond your present ability to achieve. The Scottish poet, Robert Burns said: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

I had lofty goals but I broke them up into small sequential and achievable steps and set my foot firmly upon the first one before taking each of the others in turn. Then I lived fully in each moment as it came. Consequently, while there have been times I'd rather not live through again, for thirty years I've enjoyed a life of adventure and travel and can honestly say, though wealth has eluded me, for the most part I've been happy.

Take stock of your circumstances. Are you using debt to acquire things NOW that might better wait till later? Are you driving a $25,000 car when a $2,500 car would do? Are you living beyond your means? Are you eating your seed stock instead of planting your fields?

If your answers to these questions are yes, I'm betting you are unhappy. It's time to reassess what you can realistically achieve with your present capabilities and reduce your wants and needs to fit within your abilities. THEN take steps to create surplus and use that surplus to create more surplus. You are infinitely more likely to achieve all the goals you've set for yourself and what's more important, you will thoroughly enjoy the journey.

Paul Buckley, of St. Petersburg, Florida publishes self-improvement information on his website: [http://www.thecharismabook.com]