I’m finally onto the podcast train.
I know, I know…most of you are thinking, “what the heck took you so long to learn the awesomeness that are podcasts?” I’ve been reading books all this time but I’m finding, that while I still love books (like, as much as I love breathing), podcasts are giving me real-time insights from thought leaders and from people who’s books I’ve read. (okay…podcast lovers, stop rolling your eyes like “obviously”)
So last night at the gym, I was listening to The Good Life Project with Jonathan Fields and he was interviewing Abby Wambach, the past Captain of the US Womens national soccer team. Abby is also a writer (her book is called Wolfpack if you’d like to check it out), an activist and world-renown speaker. The interview was awesome, very insightful, and one of the things that really stood out for me was the concept of fulfillment vs happiness.
Abby suggests that people should be looking to feel fulfilled in life, not only happy. Happy is a by-product of fulfillment but happy is situational or circumstantial, not necessarily a constant feeling. And I think she’s right!
Overall, generally, I’m happy with my life…definitely the instances of happy far outweigh the instances of unhappy. But I’m not happy all the time. I have happy moments, happy situations, but also unhappy moments and unhappy situations.
However, I’m aiming for fulfillment all the time. I focus my attention and my actions (mostly – sometimes I mess up my priorities) towards the goals that I feel will add the most fulfillment to my life. Some of these actions make me happy (currently writing this blog at an outside Starbucks table in the sunbeams) and some are hard and don’t necessarily make me happy (like inner growth work where I’m examining my character defects for developmental opportunities).
But it all gets me closer to fulfillment in my life. Which is overall a happy place to be…or at least it should be as what fulfills me should also make me feel happy in the long term!
I’m aligned with Abby on this one…the ultimate goal of my life is to feel fulfilled, overall happy and progressing along this crooked path that is my life.
Does this resonate with anyone else?