Motivational Mondays – The Pursuit of Happiness

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.” 

–Bertolt Brecht

How often can you say that you are truly happy?

This week I was challenged by Justina of Making Mum to embark on a 5 day thankfullness challenge. What I had to do was to list 3 things I’m thankful for and tag two other friends to do the same.

Sounded like a tall order to me at first. After all, do I have so much to be thankful for each day? But as I started to reflect on my life, I realised that I have so much to be thankful for and a sense of gratitude is something that I need to cultivate in my life.

They say that social comparison is the thief of happiness. And how true is that, especially in a consumerism society like ours when we base our happiness on fleeting events and acquisitions that we think we need made worse by advertisements and social media. We may get a rush of excitement from our long-awaited purchase, that latest IT gadget, that bag, and the list goes on and on.

But once we own it, the question begs, what next and we go on lusting for the next buy. And guess what this endless pursuit of things, often leaves us feeling more empty and unhappy than before because we think that our lives are incomplete without them.

Perhaps if we would just stop chasing the world’s definition of happiness and look at what we already have, we’ll come to realise that happiness is in life itself. And that means fully appreciating what you have and being the person that you want to be without the need for anyone’s approval.

So sure, I may have chores to do when I come home from work, but that means I have a roof over my head and a family that I can care for. I may have very few me-time for myself, but that means that my family needs me. And as I get older, I’ve also learnt how to differentiate what I can change and cannot change. And for things that I cannot change, I’ll not fight battles that are not worth my time and energy.

And of course, one sure way to find happiness is to have a heart of gratitude because when you start to count your blessings daily, you’ll realise that you have so much to be thankful for and be happy about.

So I challenge you to take up the Thankfullness Challenge and go ahead and count your blessings one by one. Have a very blessed week!

Link up for Motivational Mondays

Do link up every Monday on what motivates you to be better be it a fitness goal, parenting, marriage, etc. Share your recent posts and encourage someone. Share your recent posts and encourage someone. Don’t forget to grab my badge and include it in your post after you have linked up and leave me a comment too.

I host Motivational Monday every week and I hope that you can join me every Monday. Have a great week ahead!

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Comments: 4

  1. Jus September 9, 2014 at 1:48 am Reply

    Thank you for the reminder that social comparison is the thief of happiness. I totally agree, and it doesn’t make it easier when you scroll through FB and see updates and start comparing about this and that.

    I’m glad that while it seemed a tall order at first, you hopped on and took the challenge! So encouraged by your posts for this. 🙂

    • Susan September 11, 2014 at 12:19 am Reply

      Thanks for the challenge and that reminds me that I have not been posting my thankful list for the past few days. Being thankful is still something that I’m working on nurturing 🙂

  2. Summer September 12, 2014 at 4:06 pm Reply

    Love this post and the quotes on happiness! How very true that many of us tend to complicate happiness when it should be something very simple and more often than not, it’s all around us. Thanks for the tag and I hope I can get around to feeling more thankful for all the little things in my life once this busy period (and somewhat sickly for the kids) is over. I really enjoyed reading this post, so thanks for inspiring and for linking up with Happiness Is! 🙂

    • Susan September 14, 2014 at 5:41 pm Reply

      Hope that your positive outlook continues to see you through this busy period and speedy recovery to the kids.

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