Wealthness International Management

Insight July 2009

The Key to Happiness - To Do or to Be

There area two approaches to right living and life mastery - to do or to be! There is no right or wrong, only your choice to make, however let's consider the consequences of both ways.

Our cultural overwhelmingly embraces the first approach; we live in the cultural base of doing. We believe that living well is a function of what you do; it embodies a philosophy of doing. Success is measured by what you accomplished externally. When we define ourselves by what we do, our focus in achieving concrete external goals. We also assume that by achieving those goals, we find internal contentment. We think that external activities will absorb our attention to create a desirable internal result.

We become professionally successful, or gain recognition of others - colleagues or family; so that we can feel internal state of happiness, confidence or self esteem. We search for mate and create a family for the same reasons: to feel internal satisfaction. We always assume that external accomplishment or doing come first, our internal state or how we feel comes second, presumably as a consequence of what we do.

Naturally we hope to attain noble character traits as a result of our activities. Society also doesn't offer us many institutionalized opportunities for pursuing inner goals. We look for extra curriculum volunteer activities, recreation or religious life to devote times to character cultivation. It's our time off to find the inner qualities we long for. But all the time that is not leisure, we get focused mostly on achieving in the arena of doing.

Financial stability, recognition in the professional field of our choice, marriage, children, services to community, social status are all important sign posts for external success. We spend a great deal of time to meet these criteria and we measure our success as individuals by how effectively we have done this. No one condemn that external goals can be extremely important. There is nothing wrong with doing things, we do live in the physical world and things do have to get done. But there is a problem; it is not all true that achieving external goals will guarantee internal satisfaction. Things don't work that way even though there is what the philosophy of doing claims. There is no guarantee that by accomplish the external goals, we set ourselves, we will achieve internal fulfillment. Nothing can be further than the truth; over focusing on external achievements can cause us to ignore the deep personal changes & challenges we must confront in order to feel we have lived life well.

Our culture is in crisis; the crisis we are in is due in part to this terrible gap between external success and internal satisfaction. Carried to the extreme, the focus on external accomplishments and achievements provides the opposite of a satisfying life. We accumulate external proofs of our value at the cost of a deep inner sense of emptiness and what often amounts to despair over the meaning of life. We try to quench our inner emptiness by accomplish more and the inner emptiness only grows. There is something about our focus on over achieving that is distorted, expresses a sickness of the soul; we thought we have to pile up achievements in order to be okay. The truth is that we would not feel we had to prove ourselves by what we did unless we already believed that we were unworthy. If we are unworthy at our core, no amount of achievements will solve our problem. The philosophy of doing is at best limited and at worst bankrupt us.

The alternative of Being is that living well is a function of who you are. It embraces a philosophy of being. It says success at living; reflects your internal state or how you experience yourself inside - by achieving a desirable internal state come first. When we define ourselves by who we are instead of what we do; we focus on achieving inner qualities like serenity, strength, harmony, balance, passion or insight. External success comes second, presumably as a result of achieving a desirable internal state. We have a very few reference points for achieving fulfillment or success at being.

The only way we can find the pathway to satisfaction is by lessening our obsessive grip on doing and focusing more on being. But what does being involved and would these individual be like? These individuals are all too rare, but I have met a few. They are at peace, balanced yet courageous, strong and not afraid of taking risks. They blend authority with gentleness, patience with dynamism, the capacity for joy and laughter with an ability to experience deep recesses of personal pains. They integrate a passion for self -expression with the ability to listen intently and are leaders who can also follow. They are their own person, uninfluenced by public opinion, yet also capable of deep partnership and companionship. They are profoundly committed to inspiring causes and able to evoke that sense of commitment in others. They are mentally sharp, emotionally vibrant and vitally alive. They take responsibilities for their actions an make every moment of life count and contribute in a big way; not because they need to have external accomplishments but because they care deeply. They give & receive love abundantly and be of genuine service from a spirit of self-giving rather than of obligation. Their many strength combine Yin and Yang, softness and strength, independent and the capacity for loving independence. They are totally comfortable in their own skins.

Spiritual writings extol the virtues of being. The philosophy of being is about self- awareness and self-transformation. The consequences of our culture's total failure to value self -transformation are deadly and lack of faith in human spirit; underlies our obsession with keep busy. We learn to over focus on details and avoid our responsibility for the big picture. We learn how to do more but we don't necessarily learn how to become a bigger & better people; to conquer the anxieties that drive us or to set our sights on higher ideas. Our lack of faith in ourselves, limit our ability to challenge ourselves. We admire greatness of character in others yet often assume that we cannot develop this greatness within ourselves. Almost nothing around us tell us what the pathway of self -transformation and empowerment looks like and how we can embrace it.

Cultural Voices counsel defeat rather than challenge us to grow. A typical crippling voices masquerade as scientific fact is we are born with unalterable genetic traits. Therefore our personalities are largely under the control of our biochemistry, it rules us. According to this view we are victims of our biochemistry, and the best we can do is to manage our state with the use of external agents. All nation is not only the biggest consumer of illicit drugs, it is also the biggest consumer of prescription drugs. The science limits us; instead of helping us to grow, it misleading us on a fact that our biochemistry affects our emotional and mental states; this is outright self destruction with this fearful belief. We are now seeing more and more death occurring with the younger and famous generations using prescription drugs to release their emotional pains.

Each of us has the power to use our mind to transform our internal states and create a life that is physically healthy, as well as emotionally & mentally rewarding. We can't create this life for ourselves unless we place our priorities where they belong, with being rather than dong. This is the responsibility we face; it is not a question of sacrificing one thing for another. Focusing on being will take us where we actually want to go, when we focus on doing; because both philosophy of doing and being are aiming at the same goal - inner satisfaction. People who focus on becoming happy by achieving external goals are going about themselves in a confused way - putting the cart before the horse. This confusion over what comes first is the problem - it makes for a lot of poor choices in life.