Happiness is different things to different people but there are common threads that run through the achievement of happiness for most people. These threads can be broken down into five ingredients. If you have all five of these you will be happy
1. Gratitude
Happy people are grateful and appreciative of what they have, whatever that may be. They always find something good and positive in their circumstances. This attitude of gratitude is the foundation stone on which happiness is built.
By way of contrast, unhappy people are not grateful or appreciative of anything in their world. They are constantly focused on the fact that there is something that they don't have. They live in lack and as a result, their spirit is lacking. Nothing ever makes them truly happy.
2. Passion
Happy people are passionate people. It could be a passion for knowledge. It could be a passion for success. It could be a passion for helping others. It could be any passion at all, as long as it truly inspires the person to become more than they are now.
The unhappy person is devoid of passion. They are complacent or apathetic. They have no inspiration in their life, nothing to urge them to evolve and grow into a more developed person. As a result, they tend to go around in circles; each year is similar to the year before. They are in a spiritual rut.
3. Challenge
Happy people have a challenge that they are pursuing. It could be a purely spiritual challenge such as finding enlightenment or it could be a commercial challenge such as building a successful business. It could be a sporting challenge such a winning a medal in the Olympics or it could be a career challenge.
The important ingredients of the challenge are that it is in the area of the person's passion and that it is big enough to be inspiring but not so big as to be overwhelming.
The unhappy person avoids challenges. They are waiting for someone or something to give them happiness. They believe that happiness is outside of them and that any form of challenge is work to be avoided.
4. Faith
Happy people have faith that they will achieve the destination that their challenge requires. They have faith that they have the mental and spiritual strength to take on their challenge and to grow in whatever way they need to grow in order to succeed.
They have faith that every experience has its purpose and that something positive can be gained from it, even if the experience is a bad experience or a setback.
Unhappy people are lacking in faith. On the surface, they are seeking happiness but they don't really believe that they will ever find it, and they are right. You can't find happiness if you don't have faith.
5. Journey
Happy people are on a journey to their challenging destination. They have a purpose for getting up each day. They have a purpose for the things they do each day. They are doing the things required to follow their passion and they take joy from that fact.
Unhappy people are stagnant. They are not on any journey to anywhere. They are milling around, marking time. They are waiting for the world to give them happiness and they will have to wait forever because happiness requires you to take action, to grow, and to move forward in life.
Happy people have all five ingredients; gratitude, passion, challenge, faith, and journey. They may be Buddhist monks on the road to enlightenment following a path of poverty. They may be billionaire business owners following a path of commercial empire-building. They may be musicians dedicating their life to mastering their instruments. They could be following any of an infinite number of paths but they all have the five ingredients of happiness.
