Revive The 8 Qualities Of Your Happiness
It is said that there are 8 qualities of happiness. Here’s a list of the 8:
1) Social Relationships
2) Health
3) Education
4) Employment
5) Wealth, Money, Finances
6) Purpose/Purpose in Life, Meaning in Life/Self-Transcendence (eg. spirituality and religion), or Value Creation (eg. meaningful work or activity that benefits society such as volunteering or charity work).
7) Enjoyment of Life
8) Engagement/Boldness
There are the 8 qualities of happiness, but you can only have one or two of these qualities at any time. You may only have one social relationship at any time and choose which relationships matter, which don’t matter and which to give up or abandon (or reduce). The same goes with health, education, employment, wealth etc. Only one of these can be obtained at any point in life. And being an introvert, I believe that you can only have one or two of these qualities at any time and choose which ones are most important to you. This is why we need introspection to see which qualities we need in our lives. It’s up to us but we can’t know what is most important unless we make that decision.
The reason why people don't focus on the 8 qualities discussed above is because they want more luxuries and complications in their lives. They want more money and more benefits. They want to be famous, famous, rich and famous. They want to have as much social relationships, fame and wealth as possible in their lives.
These qualities work together in your life. The 8 qualities of happiness work together to build up a life that is happy and comfortable. But the 8 qualities are not necessarily mutually exclusive. If you have the 1) social relationships quality then you don’t need the other 7. If you want to earn a living and benefit society, then you can still have social relationships (eg. volunteer at a charity, get married).
The 8 qualities of happiness are not the same as the traditional 8 basic needs. The traditional 8 basic needs are:
1) food
2) clothing
3) shelter
4) education
5) health care and medical services
6) transport and communication services
7) recreation and culture
8) employment/earnings and financial security.
The main difference is that it is possible to have more than one of these qualities at one time. You can have food, shelter, clothing and education at the same time. This is easy because these things are often found together. But if you want to know what you want in life then you need to decide what is most important. For example, if you want a lot of money, then this means that you will have less friends (friends cost money) and less education (you will probably spend your time working more than studying). If you have a career then you may have less time for education and maybe even friends. If you have lots of money then you may be too busy getting rich to spend time with your friends.
If we want to build this quality of happiness in our lives, we must learn which qualities are most important to us. And then we must decide which of these qualities to lower the amount of or give up completely if they are no longer important to us. This is the key thing to remember, that if something is no longer important to us then we should stop doing it. If a social relationship becomes no longer important then we should stop it. Maybe we should not get married or stay married. Maybe we should not have children or only have children when they are grown up and have a job and their own place in life.
In order to build this quality of happiness; first you must decide what qualities you want in your life (in other words, which qualities of happiness does your life need?). Then you must choose which ones of those qualities you want to lower the amount of. In other words, do you want to decrease your health somewhat, or maybe break a leg so that your employment is lower? Do you want to become homeless and have no shelter? Will this effect your self-esteem and mental happiness significantly? If it does then it’s not worth it.
By knowing what you value most in life is half the battle (because only then can you find out what quality of happiness needs work). This is because you can then make all the necessary changes in your life to bring you to where you want to be. If a certain quality of happiness is not working then you should change it. If you want your life to be comfortable and happy but it isn’t then this could mean that there are various reasons. Maybe your physical health is low. Maybe the standard of living at home isn’t good enough for a comfortable life (good house, good car etc. ). Maybe your family doesn’t support you. Maybe there is a lot of work at home (mother, father, sister/brother) and you don’t feel that you can deal with it.
At present, I am in one of these situations. My wife has a job at home and I help out around the house when she is at work. In the future I do want her to have her own job so that she can earn money for the two of us to live on our own.
Conclusion: If you want to be happy then you must look at the 8 qualities of happiness and choose which ones are most important. If one or two of these qualities are not working in your life then you should change them. This is why we need introspection; so that we can know what is most important to us and to our lives. We often need to make choices, but these choices cannot be made without knowing what we value most in life.