“The greatest wealth is to live content with little”
Plato
Leading a happier, more content life is the one thing that almost everyone in the world is aiming for. It is so much more than feeling good or plastering a smile on your face. It is the feeling of feeling truly at peace with your lot and enjoying what you have and making the very best of it. Life does not have to be perfect to be happy and content. It is more a case of accepting what we have and doing our best with it.
But if things aren’t perfect, how do we lead a life that we are content with? How can we be at peace with what we have if all we have is a dead-end job, a tiny house and struggling to make ends meet? Is it possible to lead a content life? Here, we look at some of the things that you can do to lead a happy and content life.
Photo by Hassan OUAJBIR from Pexels
Focus on the positives
If you are always focusing on the negatives in your life, you are never going to feel happy and content. You need to retrain your mind to stop looking for everything that is negative and look for the positives. One of the most simple ways of doing this is to spend a few minutes at the beginning of every day thinking about what is good in your life. Perhaps look at some gratitude journal prompts if you are not quite sure where to start.
Celebrate the small victories
Life is unpredictable and is packed with highs and lows, but in between, there are plenty of small victories that we usually let pass by unnoticed. Take note of these small wins and celebrate them. Perhaps you finally got round to clearing out that cupboard, or you found that earring you have been looking for for years. Take delight in these small things and you will realize there are plenty more of the highs than the lows.
Find a happy medium between work and life
For many of us, work is the thing that brings us down the most. If we are in a job that makes us feel unfulfilled or bored or work with people we do not get along with, it can really dent our happiness.
It does not help that work also takes up a great percentage of our day. However, it is important to remember that you are not your job, and it is not the whole point of your life. It is important to pursue interests and hobbies beyond your job and spend time with your family and friends. Finding that often-elusive work-life balance will help you to reduce the stress in your life and give you other outlets in which to have fun and be able to express your emotions.
The key to being happier and content is to take stock of what you have and realise that happiness can be found in the small things.
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