Unhappy

We seem to have a consistent and never ending ability to make ourselves unhappy. If we are happy there seems to be a little voice in the background saying it won't last or in some way we don't deserve it. It is part of a protective cover we maintain so that we don't get hurt and we can say see I told you it wouldn't last.
The trouble is that attitudes like this are self-fulfilling. We make them come true so that we don't have to deal with the true underlying issue of self-worth, our purpose in life, or pay attention to open issues we have yet to deal with.
Being happy and making others happy is one of the few fundamental freedoms where it is directly our choice. So if happiness is a choice then why don't we choose it more often?
Your thoughts?

Purpose

It is generally believed that we need to find our purpose in life to be fulfilled. I don't argue that point but wonder whether we have only a single purpose as is often thought for our lifetime.
We are constantly changing according to the circumstances in our life. Events occur that are not in our control, peoples' decisions which we do not control impact us, changing knowledge and experiences change us, we age and see new concepts and interact with new people, and so on.
Perhaps we need to find different purposes at different times in our lives to keep growing. Perhaps we need to reexamine our purpose or purposes throughout our lives to maximize our lives to the best of our ability.
We need to keep ourselves challenged and evolving throughout our lives and perhaps a single unchanging purpose is not sufficient to accomplish that.
Your thoughts?

Gateways

We can tend to believe that the choices we make could be temporarily made and undone by making another choice later on. Another perspective could change how we think about choice. Borrowing from the magical realm of fantasy we could call choices more appropriately as gateways that magically appear to us whenever necessary.
This would occur whenever we stop to ask ourselves a question:
Is there a better way?
Do we like the results we see in our life?
Why are others treating us this way?
Do we want to accept that offer, relationship, deal, etc.?
In short anything that makes question what we are doing.

Gateways seems more appropriate as once we have passed through the gateway of our choice then life can never return to what it was. Gateways could lead to paths that are harmful to us or good for us or appear to make no difference but in all cases it is a change in direction in our lives and should not be made blindly, in fits of anger, to punish others or ourselves.

We have the freedom to step through the gateway of our choice and by calling it a gateway rather than choice recognizes the importance of taking the right actions in our lives.

Your thoughts?

Life Perspective

For a number of people winning at life appears to be an ever increasing list of things to have or to be accomplished. They are never satisfied with what they have and therefore are always living in the future. Others seem to live with the chains of the past. Every failure to achieve something adds yet another chain preventing them from taking chances at all and therefore end up doing nothing.
In both cases the present escapes them and they are never happy with any aspect of their life. Why do we make it so hard to just enjoy our lives?
Is there a better perspective?
Instead of making life a perpetual contest we could perhaps change our perspective by asking instead what is the legacy that we will leave behind us when we die. If we have made a positive difference in even just other person then we have won. Our life has meaning. If we were to use the analogy that life is like a poker game then each moment is like having a fresh hand dealt. What has gone on before has no bearing on the current hand dealt other than the experience of getting to know the other players. It is the accumulation of well played hands that produce a winner not dissimilar to life.
The change from winning to legacy and the focus on how we play the current hand dealt by circumstances and our interactions with others could lead us to living a more fulfilling life.
Your thoughts?