Finding Happiness Is Your Purpose

By Victor Lofinmakin

The myth that happiness is elusive is just that - a MYTH. The reason multitudes of people daily struggle and squabble under the weight of discontentment and depression is not because it is impossible to be successful and happy in the present life, but because they misunderstand happiness and consequently seek it in the w

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornerstone Publishing
• Release date: Aug 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781952098208

Victor Lofinmakin

Victor Lofinmakin is a U.S. Naval Officer. He is also the founder, president and CEO of Fairdale Capital Management, LLC. Selected as "2016 top 20 under 40 rising stars in real estates by Houston Association of Realtors," Victor is a successful Real Estate Broker and a Residential Mortgage Loan Originator. Victor Lofinmakin has written several financial and success articles published on various financial websites and read in over 110 countries. He is a public speaker in the self-improvement genre. He lives in Houston, Texas with his wife, Dolly and their two daughters.

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Chapter One

FIND YOUR PURPOSE

SUCCESS IS NOT THE KEY TO HAPPINESS. HAPPINESS IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS. IF YOU LOVE WHAT YOU ARE DOING, YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL.

- Albert Schweitzer

This is the cornerstone of lasting happiness – locating your purpose on earth. A life lived with purpose is a life lived with meaning. On a deeper note, however, any talk of discovering the purpose for your life requires you to discover the real meaning of your existence. As Socrates, the Greek philosopher, puts it, The unexamined life is not worth living.

There is a school of thought that defines success as the progressive realization of worthy goals. To the extent that success itself is not a destination, but a life-long journey, this definition appears good enough. We pursue success in the ultimate hope of being happy. But, in the pursuit of happiness, can we then simply boil success down to only the achievement of goals?

Nick Seneca Jankel said in Conscious Lifestyle Magazine that lasting happiness can never come from achieving goals, no matter how ambitious. This is because the glow from every success, whether it be winning an Olympic gold medal or a golden Oscar, fades eventually. This provides us with a key distinction between happiness and lasting happiness. Happiness is an instant emotion of joy, while lasting happiness is the true joy that endures.

PROBLEM WITH MERE SUCCESS

There is a big problem with seeking happiness through an endless quest for so-called success. Let me explain. If after great effort, we do not get what we want, we feel that life has been unfair to us. If, on the other hand, we do get something, but it is not exactly what we want, having to make do with second best still gives us the subtle feeling that life has treated us unfairly.

The most unfortunate part of it all is that when we do get exactly what we want, we still end up feeling that we have been given an unfair deal, for the simple reason that we simply cannot hold onto it forever. This is because, just as in the winning of an Olympic gold medal, the glow of success will surely fade. By the same token, the initial euphoria in acquiring a gleaming new Cadillac will also fade. At a point, for most people, life starts to appear quite meaningless. There seems to be nothing but emptiness in their apparent victories. The only way out of this dilemma is to seek a greater meaning or purpose to our existence and its attendant struggles.

PERTINENT CASE STUDY

Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist, and a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust. His terrible experiences as a concentration camp inmate led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, giving one a reason to continue living.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl documented the findings of a career devoted to a study of an existential approach to therapy. He concluded that the lack of meaning in a person’s life is the paramount existential stress. In other words, the major cause of stress in the lives of most people is a feeling of meaninglessness. To Frankl, existential neurosis is synonymous with a crisis of meaninglessness.

For most people, it is only after a lengthy series of the feelings of the meaninglessness that seem to accompany their transient successes that they finally ask themselves certain important questions: What is the real purpose of my existence? Why am I here? What am I meant to do while here? Who am I meant to be?

As Mark Twain said, The two most important days of your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why. This is quite true. Yet, we must forgive ourselves for the difficulty in answering these questions. This is because, as Benjamin Franklin once said, The three hardest things in life are steel, diamond and the discovery of self.

POWER OF PURPOSE

The greatest miracle in the life of an individual is to discover the true purpose for his existence. The second greatest miracle is the faithful pursuit of that purpose, for with it comes true happiness, wealth and fulfillment. As Nick Seneca Jankel once said, Our guiding light is our purpose. We cannot thrive until we discover it. The beauty in discovering this guiding light is that it tends to give us a joy that shines brighter as, daily, we are presented with situations that reveal more and more about our purpose.

The importance of finding your purpose cannot be overemphasized. Many people have wasted their time struggling with difficult, unproductive and stressful life ventures, simply because they did not take out time to discover their purpose in life. Indeed, the rewards of taking the time to find your purpose far outweigh any financial rewards you might possibly get from studying at the best schools or getting the highest paid jobs. The simple truth is that without seeking and finding your purpose, all the apparent rewards of success will fall flat on their faces at the end of the day.

Most people end up depressed and unfulfilled after working tirelessly for an entire lifetime in a field that is very much at variance with their true purpose. Admittedly, some people are lucky enough to find their purpose at an early stage in life, either by accident or by the acts of Providence. However, we must also admit that, for the vast majority, this is not the case. We seem not to possess the ability to be calm enough or deliberate enough to take the time to dig deep to find our purpose.

MANDATORY REFLECTION

It gets to a point in a person’s life when the need to slow down and take stock becomes very necessary indeed - if only for the simple reason that it is in quiet contemplation that we tend to discover certain crucial truths about ourselves. Pythagoras, the first man to call himself a philosopher, said, Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.

We need to slow down, instead of spending our entire lives jumping from one unfulfilling project to the next in search of what makes us truly happy. The lack of purpose in most people’s lives is so chronic that they do not even know what they truly enjoy, having no real hobbies or, worse, not even knowing what their hobbies are.

The most important anecdote you can take from this book would be to find your purpose in life. Finding your life purpose should be such a critical mission because it is your only guaranteed path to great happiness and great contentment. Although it is true that a few people have been known to find their purpose without necessarily enduring so much thought and soul-searching, this is an exception rather that the rule. The simple truth is that, for most of us, we must give it considerable and deliberate thought in order to find our life’s purpose.

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-DISCOVERY

To set you on this path of self-discovery, I have taken great pains to develop ten simple sets of questions that can help you think through and find out what your purpose in life is. I have deliberately made them only ten questions, not only for the ease of doing the exercise, but to also emphasize the importance of going through and completing it. Do not continue reading this book until you have completed this exercise. The entire benefits and success you will derive from this book are premised on the completion of this exercise.

If you are reading this book just before your bedtime, or listening to the audiobook while driving, and you feel you cannot complete the exercise right now, I would advise that you stop reading and schedule a time on your calendar when you can conveniently perform this exercise. Postpone your reading until such a time, and only continue reading after you have completed the exercise of finding out what your life’s purpose is, and the development of your own personal mission statement.

Here are the ten sets of questions to assist you in finding your purpose and developing your personal mission statement. I suggest you get a notepad to write down the answer to each component of the questions.

1. Who are the five people who inspire you the most in life? What qualities about each person inspire you? What do these people have in common? Why would you want to emulate them? (This could be anyone alive or dead. Also, whether you are familiar with them or not is immaterial. Such persons may be your friends, members of your family, distant relatives, a public figure, a businessperson, or even a political leader).

2. What core human values do you stand for? Take a good look at this list of enduring values: love, compassion, empathy, integrity, valor, courage, selflessness, truth, dependability, loyalty, kindness. At this stage of your life, which of these values seem to resonate with your deeper human yearnings? How would you like to be remembered in the way you connect with your fellow human beings?

Most people, especially the very wealthy, do not talk much about the accumulation of wealth in their last moments. They talk more about regrets in not having connected more deeply in their human interactions. A classic example of this sort of mindset in a man’s last days is seen in the parting words of Steve Jobs, American entrepreneur, inventor and industrial designer, who was co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. In the celebrated eBook, Steve Jobs’ Last Words, Chris Bell quotes Steve Jobs copiously thus: "I have come to the pinnacle of success in business. In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success. However, apart from work, I have little joy. Finally, my wealth is simply a fact to which I am accustomed. At this time, lying on the hospital bed and remembering all my life, I realize that all the accolades and riches of which I was once so proud, have become insignificant with my imminent death. In the dark, when I look at green lights, of the equipment for artificial respiration and feel the buzz of their mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of my approaching death looming over me. Only now do I understand that once you accumulate enough money for the rest of your life, you must pursue objectives that are not related to wealth. It should be something more important. For example, stories of love, art, dreams of my childhood. No, stop pursuing wealth. It can only make a person into