Lifes Little Secrets

I have a little secret for you....wait come close "realize what you love, and spend your life doing it"

I have been writing a little bit lately. 2 years ago or so I wrote a small autobiography about my life up to that point. It turned out to be about 100 pages. It was a way to tell my story for journal purposes and to give some advice to anyone who ended up reading it similar to what I am writing below. A few weeks ago I wrote this and thought I would post it.

I think one of the many secrets of life’s happiness is to align your time spent in life with the talents, passions and desires of who you are. I always love to see when someone’s in a career which they have spent their life enjoying those activities. As in a girl who grew up dancing, danced through high school and maybe college and now owns a dance studio or teaches dance. Someone who loves the outdoors and now works for a touring company or outdoor sporting company. Maybe someone is very social and is good at talking with people and now is in business or sales promoting products.

My high school choir teacher is a great example of this. He is a guy that followed what he was passionate about. He had natural skills for the arts and made it who he is. Everywhere I seem to look when it comes to the fine arts in Utah he is involved in it. It could be some choir, a hale theater play, the Mormon Tabernacle choir, a high school choir that is preforming at my church and he is the conductor. He got his master’s degree in music at the university of Utah. He’s found a way to make his life’s living in what he loves to do.

I love to see where people are spending their time doing what they love and have found a way to make a living doing it. Spending their time being who they are at the core, and finding a way to utilize their natural talents that they don’t have to work too hard to naturally have. I know it’s not easy, and many of us are not in a career which they would associate as that. But hopefully aspects of our career(I say career, because you spend a majority of your life’s time in your career) have you doing things you naturally enjoy and are good at. If not you should find a career that does.

I watched a clip that one of my friends from my mission put together. It was about complacency. He and a group of guys went around and interview hundreds of people around the country and most felt they put there life’s ladder up against the wrong building. It didn’t seem like the amount of money they had, had any effect on whether they felt this way.

Its obviously easier to be satisfied in your complacency of life if you have money, but money can also dull you into complacency. If your economically well off or poor and you’re not involved in pursuing or doing your natural talents, desires or passions the same frustration and feeling of life dissatisfaction seems to occur.

I think its something you need to strive for. Find a way to utilize the abilities that just come easy to you. You’re god given “gifts”. Do the things you naturally love to do and get rid of the things you don’t really like to do if possible. The happiest people seem to have 5 or 6 things of who they are and they master them. They don’t waste their time on fringe things that don’t align really with who they are. Life and days are too short to waste it on things that are sort of drudgery for you.

The best quarterbacks in the NFL are those that do one thing really well…throw the ball. Tom Brady, Payton & Eli Manning, Drew Brees. They have 3 options…throw to a receiver, hand it off, or throw the ball away. Because they only have 3 options when they snap the ball the decision process is much easier and they avoid mistakes. Maybe that is why Mr. Tebow isn’t an elite NFL quarterback. He has to many options at his disposal when he snaps the ball he makes more mistakes.

We as people typically think the more activities we are involved in the better, we spread ourselves so thin. I beg to think master a few things and spend your time focused on less. Have a few really meaningful relationships rather than have 100 friends that you have shallow friendships with. It seems to me those that know who they are, and do those few things, have a better chance of really enjoying their life. Those who don’t really know who they are, and are all over the place don’t seem to be as grounded and happy.

I think its import to find out who you are and the person you want to be. And then accept that, and excel at it. It brings happiness and joy. We all have god given talents that come really easy to us and others have to work really hard to have the same ability. We are all drawn to certain things. Align your life with those things and you will find satisfaction and maximize the happiness of your life.