What is the ultimate life?

I have asked this to myself repeatedly for many years. I have always envied the lives of others, and have always wondering how others found happiness and combined it with their lifestyle. I will be honest and say that I think very few people are truly happy. And I will tell you why.

I believe to be truly happy, not only do you need "happiness", you also need to feel centered and aligned in your daily life. What this means is that you need everything you do to be an extension of your beliefs and your ideals. For this reason I feel that very few people, even "happy" people, are truly happy. I do not believe for a minute that the happy go lucky guy in your office feels that what he does at his desk for 8 hours a day is in alignment with his beliefs. I suppose it is possible, but the better possibility I believe is that these people have somehow convinced themselves that they like what they do.

I count myself in the total of people who are not truly happy, and I believe that I have narrowed it down to my job; the problem being that I get paid to do something that is not in keeping with who I am as a person. I have never felt that co-workers truly know the real me, and this is because my job has always defined me, as opposed to me defining my job.

So what is the ultimate life or lifestyle to ensure happiness? For a while I thought it would be endless travel. Others think it is being rich. Others, as mentioned above, are happy to sacrifice their time for a paycheck to buy big houses and nice cars and flat screen tvs. For others it is having a family.

I think that it is a combination of all these things. I have finally realized that endless travel wouldn't be the ideal for me. I like home and I like some routine. I also know that it is not about money for me. Currently I have a "good" job and a good salary, and clearly I am not where I want to be.

I think for me to get to a place where I am truly happy, I need the following things:

• A job or way of earning money that is in alignment with my beliefs and passions


• A modest home that is in harmony with the land


• Simple furnishings, not deprived in any area, but not extravagant


• Time to reflect on life itself and to be awed by nature and the world around me


• Companionship (and possible family at some point)


• Simplicity and understanding that being alive is life

I suppose I am halfway there, but not all the way. I think if I get to this point, I will be a truly happy person and then all the the other things that I daydream about will fall into place. I will get to experience the world, whether 10,000 miles away or in my backyard. I will know I'm successful because I will have a home and a companion.

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Time for an update

I had someone remind me that I haven't blogged in a long time. This is true. I guess I have just been blogged out lately, a lot of what I was writing was complaining, contemplating, pondering, dumping random thoughts onto the screen. I just haven't had the urge to do this lately.

In about 3 weeks I will likely be officially divorced, it seems like it happened a long time ago, but officially it hasn't happened yet. We separated last summer, I have been living on my own since then. We still talk, visit maybe once a week or so, but what we had is no longer there. It is better this way though, I now see that she brought a lot of negative energy into my life. Life has been good since then, a little boring at times. Sometimes I wonder where my life is going. Next year I will be thirty, with one unsuccessful marriage under my belt.

Being single is nice, but I am at my peak as a person when I have someone else in my life. I have always been sort of a loner when it comes to having friends, sure I have friends, but there are very few people who I have met in my life who really understand me. Of course I like going out with people and having drinks and just letting off steam, but I also like people who have some substance behind them, people who understand that life is more than what most people think it is.

Anyway, even though I am a loner, I do like having someone special to do things with. I think because of what I just previously mentioned, I tend to get along with women better than men because the whole macho testosterone thing that is just ridiculous to me is out of the way. So the moral of that all is that I have been dating someone since January, it has been fun. In a way I am worried that I have come too close to giving up a freedom that many guys long for. Sometimes I think I need to date more, get a few experiences under my belt. But I am not great a meeting people for casual relationships, I really like having emotional intimacy, and being able to share things with someone who you care about for me trumps a night of fun with someone you hardly know. It also seems that I tend to get involved with women who are very outgoing and very social. Sort of strange for me being that I am not that outgoing nor am I that social, but I have always chalked it up to opposites attracting. I also think that it is good for me, to have someone who will keep me going rather than just getting into a slump and being a bum.

Well, that's that ... Maybe I'll post again this month, we'll see.

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