Happiness is Keeping to your Values

We don’t know where we’ll end up, but making moments matter – taking a step back to see something from a different vantage point and investing in your core values – can lead to a world of surprises. ~ Nina Tassler

An important part of being happy is knowing yourself.  You have to know what’s important to you, what types of things make your happier, what types of things sabotage your happiness.  Very often, as we examine these things, we start to get a good sense of our core values.  By core values what I mean are those things that are most important to you.  For many people a core value is connection to family.  For many people, loyalty to their friends, being someone who gives back, being kind or religious are things that may be core values to them.

For me, one of my deepest core values is honesty.   This means that I make a significant effort to be honest with people.  Sure, we all tell the occasional white lie to spare someone’s feelings, or stay quiet rather than say something hurtful.  However, I really try to do as little of that as possible.  This makes me a bit too  direct, a bit too honest for some people and it definitely means that people who know me, well, they don’t ask questions they really don’t want an honest answer to.  Of course that has it’s upside as well, I am someone that people depend upon when they want truly honest feedback.

The thing about this value for me is that it’s something that’s very much a two-way street.  I have an expectation that the people close to me will also be honest with me.  When this doesn’t happen, when there are conflicting core values at work, it creates for disappointment, bad feelings and a loss of happiness.

So what’s the lesson in this brief discussion tonight?  Well simply, it is that if you want to maximize your happiness, it helps to align yourself in life, to spend time with people who share your core values.  While diversity in many things is a positive, in this particular instance, aligning with similar minded people can be a positive impact on your happiness and lead to happy days my friends. ~ Rev Kane