by

Living A Happy Life and Living A Meaningful Life

One thing I’ve noticed recently is that it’s not that hard to live a happy life, especially for someone like me who was born and grew up in a country like Japan. (Having said that, however, I should point out that there are many, many unhappy people in Japan as well)

What I mean by “living a happy life” is similar to living a healthy life, except it’s about both physical health and mental health. I do have worries, big and small, but overall, I feel I’m OK about my situation and with that feeling I can say I’m happy.

I’m grateful and feel lucky about my situation.

I bet most of you who read this post do belong to this group of people who can live a happy life without struggling for real survival.

Just like living a healthy life is a choice, living a happy life is a choice, too. If you want to live a happy life and find your current life not as happy as it could be, then I recommend you to change the way you live your life. Simply realizing something’s not working and being honest about it can help you get to a better place.

So, if living a happy life is relatively easy for me and I want to do something more challenging, what can I do?

I mentioned this in a recent post, but what I’ve been thinking a lot about these days is what it means to live a meaningful life. “Meaningful” is a tricky concept here. What I have in mind when I think of living a meaningful life is to live a life in which I give values to people and to the world, so I could probably say “meaningful” here is like “value giving”.

I don’t know how I can do it, but I want to give more and better values to people around me and to the world. This is very general. Nonetheless, it’s a guide I can follow. I have no idea where I will end up, but I know where I’m heading. Whatever I do to improve myself and to be a better person will be relevant to this aim of giving values in one way or another. Let’s go beyond personal growth for the sake of your own happiness and grow to be a better version of you who enrich lives of others.

On that note, I ask: what values can I or could I give to you?