You
“This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well.”
~Susan Polis Schutz
Make your life about you.
On the surface, this may sound selfish or self-centered, but if you dig deeper into what this means, it should mean just the opposite. Putting a mark on the world that is uniquely yours. Making your life about you means bringing your own special set of talents, passions, and your own energy to everything that you do. By doing this, you will be giving the best of yourself to the world.
Be generous, but bring your generosity to bear in ways that are important and meaningful to you. You might say, “We should be generous to all those in need, not only those people and causes that we care about.” But if you think about it, it is not possible to be generous to everyone who needs it. We all have to make choices, and if our generosity is targeted and focused, it will be much more effective, and we will be more motivated to be generous.
Live your life to make you happy.
If you’re living a meaningful life, doing things that are a positive influence on society and the world should make you happy.
Is it OK to be happy with all the poverty, violence, and injustice in the world? YES! If your happiness isn’t the cause of any of the world’s woes, then your happiness can only make the world a better place. If you’re having a positive influence on the world, you can do it with a big smile on your face.
Make others happy.
It’s important to give of yourself to make others happy, but we have to be careful and intentional about our actions and motivations. When we strive to make others happy, we need to make sure that:
- We don’t lose sight of your motivations. We need to make sure that we’re not trying to make others happy because we want/need their approval or acceptance. Of course, we want people to accept us, but they should do it because of who we are, not because what we do makes them happy.
- We are behaving genuinely. We need to make sure that in doing things to make others happy, we are staying true to ourselves and not presenting ourselves falsely or differently than how we truly are. We can’t truly make others happy or be happy ourselves if we lose our sense of self.
- We are making others happy because it makes us happy. This may sound counterintuitive or self-centered, but if we make ourselves happy by making others happy, we will be much more sincere, and our actions will have more impact and contribute toward stronger, more meaningful relationships. Even the most “selfless” people in the world have chosen to be selfless because it is important to them.
Find balance.
Making your life about you does involve some decisions about balance. The balance between doing things only for you: things that are fun, profitable, or self-gratifying versus those things that make the world a better place. We all do things that are only for us—this might be as minor as having a sweet tooth, or be some big expensive hobby that takes a big chunk of our time and money. None of these things are inherently wrong, as long as we are also making a positive contribution. This is important not only for moral reasons, but also because a good balance will make you happier than a life that is skewed toward self-gratification.
If you look at selfish, self-centered people who only look after themselves, I would guess that they represent a higher proportion of unhappy people. Why? Because their lives have no meaning. They have nothing to look back on with pride—they haven’t contributed anything to the world.
In our lives, the only things we truly have control over are our own thoughts and actions. Making your life about you means being intentional about those thoughts and actions and building a life that is both meaningful and happy. Luckily, those two qualities feed into each other and build off each other.
Make your life about you, and you will have a life that is good for others, too.
