3 Must-Haves for a Happy Life

Throughout the course of our lives we all continuously strive to maximize our happiness. Here are some ideas derived from my own life that I've found to have the greatest impact on my own happiness. These are very simple ideas, very relatable, and hopefully provide easy ways to actively invest in your happiness.

1. Passion

Everyone has something that they are passionate about. Sometimes, understanding what you're passionate about isn't easy, or obvious. Maybe you think to yourself, "I'm not really passionate about anything". I bet if you really took a closer look, you could find the answer to this. To start, see if you can notice what activities you engage in the most, whether in reality or in your imagination, without putting negative or positive labels to them. For example, if you notice yourself constantly searching for the latest tech gadget, or throwing reams of parties, or relentlessly fantasizing about traveling the world, without labels, these are all things that you may be passionate about.

The trick is, stop labelling your passions as good or bad. Just let them be. In fact, lean into them. Invest more time searching for that latest tech gadget, more time throwing parties, more travel. Your passions, whether you are able to do them in exchange for something else (like money), are necessary components for happiness. Without them, or without permission to have them, happiness is diminished.

2. Love

Does having an abundance of love in your life really make you happier? Of course it does! In fact, shared love, the kind of love that is reciprocated, is fundamental. Think of your life partner, friends or family - that's shared love. But why is it important to cherish and invest your time in these shared-love relationships? Simply put, life has more meaning when it is experienced within the context of shared love. That is to say, things that should naturally make you happy, like getting a big promotion, winning a marathon, graduating college, you name it, won't mean as much as they could if they aren't experienced within the connectedness of love.

If you are able to invest more time into deepening and spreading those connections - that shared love - even the smallest accomplishment is magnified as a collective "win" that reverberates and amplifies your own sense of happiness. At this point, your happiness isn't generated solely by you and for you, but also by and for those with whom you share love. Building and consistently strengthening shared-love relationships can be difficult, but are critical components to enhancing and expanding your happiness.

3. Consciousness

This is undoubtably the most important of the three. Tis' the key that unlocks the nature of your passions and allows for the flourishing of love. Call it self-awareness, call it no mind, call it a release from your ego, call it whatever you want. The development of the human brain is a remarkable achievement for our species, enabling us to become deep thinkers and problem solvers. But this comes with a grave consequence - we've overclocked our brains. We think incessantly, about everything, anything. Beyond the waste of mental energy used by a constantly thinking brain, we often engage in negative thought-making shaped by past, and in particular, traumatic experiences. We are hard-wired to think, to create stories in our heads based on the past in order to predict and control the future.

Practice meditation and calming the internal (and mostly negative) chatter of your mind whenever you can. To encourage this, exercise and a healthy diet help to strengthen your physical state, which in turn strengthens your mental fortitude. Freeing yourself from unwarranted thought, or simply becoming a witness to your mind's unwarranted thought (having no reaction), releases the control your mind has on your emotional state. In fact, the freedom from thought in itself creates a new state of peace, contentment and universal joy, as you are no longer being emotionally controlled by a runaway mind.

These three personal investments have enabled dramatic changes in my life and my ability to maintain happiness. I hope they resonate with you, and I would love to read your comments, thoughts and tips on the same.