Your Happiness Is Built on Little Things.
Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations , Lifehacker’s weekly dip in the pool of stoic wisdom and a guide to using its waters to meditate and improve your life.
The choice this week belongs to Zeno, quoted by Diogenes Laertius. He believes that the most important thing in life is the little things:
“Well-being is achieved in small steps, but it really is not a small thing.”
Lives of Eminent Philosophers , 7.1.26
What does it mean
Happiness or a general state of contentment is a lofty goal and not always easy to achieve. This requires you to take “small steps” that accumulate over time and gradually shape your character and predicament. There are no shortcuts, gimmicks, or instant metamorphoses here. This is something that you develop within yourself throughout your life, and not something that you discover in a moment of chance, like a trifle on the sidewalk.
What to take from there
Your peak of contentment is like a house of bricks, and every brick in this structure is a tiny symbol of happiness, a little thing that makes you smile, makes you feel safe and warm. A brick can be anything – your family, your friends, finishing up an office job, choosing to stay at home instead of going outside, having a hot cup of coffee on a cold morning, a joke that makes you laugh, the feeling you get when you shoot. shoes after a long day at work, like light on a specific area of leaves … whatever. Some bricks can be found through gratitude and appreciation, while others must be earned through work, discipline, and passion. To achieve the perfect feeling, you must collect and build from them in the style of your choice.
But don’t worry when you build. Remember, it takes time to build up your satisfaction, which is “really big.” Wake up every day with a willingness to take these “small steps” to your happiness and realize that the work on it will always go on. Do good deeds, no matter how small; make a profitable choice, no matter how simple it may be; and show gratitude for what you have, no matter how simple it is. Over time, the little things will turn into a really great thing.