After 45 years as a GP, Dr Robert Favaloro ponders what it takes to build a wonderful life. How happiness can be grown and tended like a good crop. It's all about following The Rules of Life.
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Rule of Life 9 - Pleasures don't give Happiness
"I should be so happy, doc. I have a lovely family, we've got a holiday planned and my finances are good." I have it all but I'm so unhappy," was a common statement I heard in consultations with my patients.
We all yearn for this 'happiness.'
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When at University the message in the university newspaper, usually filtering through the extensive joke section, was 'get what you can when you can.' Grab pleasures now as they may not be there tomorrow. This certainly had sexual connotations.
Pleasure hits like holidays, fine dining and buying 'things' don't secure happiness. The enjoyment they give is short-lived and the seeking of pleasures can be so addictive.
A happy person can be described as having self-love.
Depression has been described as self-hate.
As we follow the rules of life - being honest, giving and sharing, accepting ourselves the way we are, judging no one, practicing being thankful - we are following a programming which brings peace and an energised state.
I would then think of the adage - 'we don't find happiness, happiness finds us.'
Francis of Assisi (800 years ago) gave us that famous statement, 'It is in giving that we receive.'
No mention in the above paragraphs of the need for pleasures or more stuff to secure happiness.
One more adage, ' Most regrets in life are not of the things we did, but of the things we didn't do,' or feel that we should have done.
The way we live our life, gives us the joy of liking ourselves.
Lets keep practicing good habits and be good models for our children. This is the way to happiness.
Rule of Life 10 in two weeks.
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