Want to be Happy? Finish that Important Task

In an earlier post, I claimed that if you take care of the following three tasks on a daily basis, you can gain happiness in life:

•     One thing that is most important for you
•     One thing to help someone else
•     One thing that gives you maximum satisfaction

Let me elaborate the first point in this post.

You may ask what has the most important task got to do with happiness? Agreed, it can make us successful or more effective, but that affects our happiness only indirectly. But my assertion is that taking care of the important work has a direct impact on our happiness. How?

Very often we tend to put off important tasks that are not yet urgent. Later on when these tasks turn urgent, we have to carry them out under stress. If we are constantly hounded by urgent stuff to be taken care of, and are all the time under stress, we get a feeling of things getting out of control. A major cause of this stress could be that we did not take care of these important tasks in time.

As an example, if you are an student, the important task for you would be to study a little at a time on a daily basis so that learning become an on-going enjoyable process for you. When you do not do regular study, you are likely to be under stress on the eve of examination to cram everything up. Does that make you happy?

I know that we can not wish away urgent tasks and the stress of every-day life in such a simplistic manner. But here is how my suggestion works. When you are in the middle of the hustle-bustle of your day full of tensions, remember to find at least one task that is important in your life, and complete it. If you can find something that you have been putting off for quite some time or dread the idea of doing it, do it first. (Take care of the biggest ugliest frog first). This gives you an instant mental satisfaction, a feeling of control over your life, and most important of all, if you practice it for a month, you will find that your stressful urgent tasks will start magically disappearing, as you have already taken care of them.

Believe me, its really as simple. Just one important task a day can save you the hassle of 10 urgent stress causing tasks later and increase your happiness.

Try this idea yourself for a month and see if it works for you.

Respect for My Mercedes

A Monk used to come to Delhi regularly, where he always slept in the house of a poor devout man, as nobody cared about him. Years later, when his reputation had spread all over the country, he came to Delhi, not on foot as before, but in a Mercedes driven by a chauffeur.

The wealthiest man of the town, who had never wanted to have anything to do with the monk, came to meet him the moment he heard about the arrival, and begged him to lodge in his house.

But the monk said, "Nothing has changed in me to make you respect me more than before. What is new is the Mercedes and the chauffeur. Take them for your guests, but let me stay with my old host, as always."

If this story rings a bell in your mind, you are either living around Delhi, or have at least visited it :)

Our Education is Never Complete

From very early childhood, we go through many stages of development.

As a toddler, we learn to sit, stand-up, walk, recognize people and things, speak. Later in school we learn to read and write, and pick up knowledge in language, science, maths, history and essential life skills.

Simultaneously, we develop our personality, social skills, emotional quotient, and spiritual side. When we are done with the education and start a career, it is time to acquire practical skills useful for the job.

As we get married, have kids, we develop new skills about parenting and being a spouse. When the kids mature we discover the ways to deal with grown up kids. When they get married, we learn to deal with the kids-in-laws.

When we reach closer to retirement, we learn how to cope with old age. No matter how old we are or how much we know, there seems to be a constant need to learn new stuff all the time.

Does this need for life-long learning point to a basic flaw in our education? Do our schools fail to equip us with the necessary knowledge and skills required for the rest of our life? Should the school not aim to send us out as a "finished product"?  What is the point of time in life when we could say we are done with the learning process?

The answer is - never! The day I think that I am a "finished product", I am finished. Even if we have read a lot and developed a lots of skills, life brings us new situations all the time, and learning to deal with them is not only necessary, but is also great fun. This reminds me of a saying:

You can not step in the same river twice. The river is changing every moment, and so are you.

If you are a computer user, a metaphor can help understand it well. Our life is not like computer hardware that leaves the warehouse in finished state, but is is more like a piece of software that requires regular bug fixes and upgrades throughout its lifetime. Even if you buy the best virus protection software in the market, it needs to upgrade itself after some time to deal with newer viruses going around. In a similar way, if you have been fortunate enough to get a good education and experience, do not consider yourself "done" yet. You will need to find a way to upgrade yourself to deal with the new situations in life every once in a few years.