Key to Happiness
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I am a working progress in my life, working towards the goals I have set for myself in my future. But other than the goals I have set for myself, my family, friends, co-workers, and most importantly, God, all have their own goals for me. Family and friends all have long-term goals in mind for me, such as attaining a college or university degree, finding a career I love, raising a family, and just making a mark on their lives. Co-workers, depending on our relationship, have similar goals for me in life, but also the goal of working hard and taking responsibility for my job. God has the most important goals set for me in my life, because he is the only one who really knows what my purpose is on this earth and how long I am going to be here to fulfill that purpose. All these goals can get overwhelming for me, so I have discovered how important it is for me to focus on what I want out of my life, and focus on my own goals. Others may be disappointed, but they have their own lives and goals to follow through with. The most important skills and talents I am working on developing to reach my life goals are compassion, leadership, and dedication.
A large part of my personality has always been compassionate, and I have always been the most emotional member of my family. I did not understand when I was younger why I would always be so sad at funerals, happy on vacations, and even grumpy on Monday mornings. I have learned as I have grown up that it is because of my compassionate nature, I feel what others around me are feeling. I share their emotions and can feel their pains. My compassion has influenced my character because I don’t want to hurt others because I would feel their pain, and I have become closest friends with those most happy with their lives or as compassionate as me. Compassion is a great skill to have, and I know I am not finished developing this skill of mine. I want to be able to help others when they are in pain, not just feel their pain. I want to be able to feel others happiness and joy right down to my heart. And most importantly, I want to be able to control my compassion, so that I can entertain upset people, make angry people laugh, and not have to have their moods influence mine to the point I become upset or angry. This is a very difficult goal I have in controlling this skill, but I know it is attainable because I have already started making steps to these goals. I don’t become sad or angry as fast because I have found things like music or praying to calm me down. Compassion is a great quality of character to have, and I will work to develop it to help others around me as much as I can.
Leadership is a skill I didn’t realize I had until further into my teenage life. When I was younger, I did not mind being told what to do and was eager to please. I learned as I advanced through middle level and high school that I felt more successful helping lead. I grew to feel that I was not helping myself or anyone else by sitting on the sidelines and leaving all the work to others. I began to help out more at home, school, and work. I took on tasks I wasn’t asked to complete, but I knew my family or friends needed done. I shovel my elderly neighbors’ driveway in the winter, help clean the classrooms after classes, and do extra cleaning at work. I don’t always get recognized for it, but that is the way I like to do it. I enjoy having others around me happy, so I do what I can to ensure they are. Not only do I help others with their work, I encourage other students and people to help out where they can. I involve others in everything I do, because I am a people person, I enjoy working with them, and as they succeed, I see it as my success too. I have a attended leadership conferences to develop this skill, and being around hundreds of others like myself who would rather help than watch, I learned how successful we can be. I made really good friends with many of them, and we always seemed to be in a good mood because we love to help one another and do our very best to make sure everything is completed so we can have fun. I am still learning the most important leadership quality, that of letting other try things out themselves without me trying to force help on them. I am learning that others need to make their own mistakes, like I have made mine, and I cannot always be there to tell someone to do right or wrong. My leadership skills will grow with me as I mature into an adult and I hope I am successful in leading others and myself to greatness.
I grew up with a sense of dedication to everything I do because of my family. I was always told to complete one task before taking on another, and that if I wanted to do something like ride my bike, I needed to go through the tricycle and training wheel stages, and take some bumps and bruises before I could ride on my own, and eventually I would get it. This dedication to a subject led into my sports participation and school. I grew up in many different sports before I found the ones I really loved, but I would always stick through an entire season of whatever sport it was before I would move onto another. I participated in indoor and outdoor soccer, figure skating, swimming, skip club, and many others before I found volleyball and softball, my favorite sports. School was the same way, but I couldn’t give up after a season. I thoroughly enjoyed school when I was younger, and homework was fun, so I didn’t complain when I had to read a book with my parents or do a spelling lesson. But this eagerness wore off as a moved on into middle level and high school. I didn’t take my homework as seriously and started procrastinating more and more. But with my last couple years of highschool I know I have to re-evaluate my dedication to homework, because math 20 and 30 pure or Chem 20 and 30 are not passable courses without significant dedication. I now try to dedicate myself to serious time management, because with sports and high achedemic courses each need time commitment. Dedication is a great skill I have and I am grateful for my family’s persistancy in keeping sports and other activites to develop it.
These skills I have focused on developing as a young adult I have found incorperate many of the goals others have for me in my life. When I develop my personal important goals, I am happy and that shows. Others do not question what I am doing with my life because these goals are attained usually by helping others, because that is what I love to do, and when I help them, they gain respect for me. I enjoy maintaining others happiness, but I have found over the years that the best way to make sure my friends and family are happy is to make sure I am happy with myself first. If I am not happy with myself, I may start to be influenced by other people’s moods, but once I am happy, I can make others around me happy. I maintain my happiness by developing skills like dedication, leadership, and compassion. Developing these skills are major goals in life for me because not only do they keep me happy, they almost always cause happiness in those around me.
