What does time have to do with the Energizer Bunny? What are the 3 secrets to Happiness?

Energizer bunnies never run down, they just keep on running and running and running. Clocks are like bunnies as well but we don’t identify with them as we do with the energizer bunny. The bunny ads are very catchy for the precise reason that so many of us feel like these bunnies, we keep on running and running and running. Some pundits have described life in modern society as akin to being on a tread mill or like rats running on wheels in a cage. At the end of the run, where are we? Do we go back to the same place we began or do we find ourselves better off? Is working harder to earn more so that we can buy more so that we can play more the solution? Is happiness the accumulation of material things that allow us to more play time? If so, then accumulating more and more money so that we can have more and more things should be the path to happiness. Instead, it seems that most people are on the path to increased debt and increased stress. Someone once said, only three things are needed to be happy:

1. Someone you love and who loves you
2. Something you love to do
3. Something to hope for

Perhaps it takes more to be happy, but these three goals provide a good start. Ironically, the path to achieve these goals is more connected to how we spend our time than how we spend our money. You cannot buy love. You cannot buy happiness in your life but you can spend your time wisely and this will result in happiness. Spending your time with people and relationships rather than things will lead to more and better relationships and you will find more happiness in these things than in the material things of life. This is not to say that we should not own things or that some things are not essential for life. However, the mindless pursuit of materialism for more and more things has long been recognized by the prophets and wise people of the world as the path to misery. A recent Time Magazine article noted a study which showed that people who made more than 75,000 dollars a year were no happier. It appears that, at least in the USA, happiness peaks at 75 grand a year. Making more than that does not lead to increased happiness.

Are you on the energizer bunny treadmill or do you balance your life with people and friendships? Do you spend as much time on relationships as you do shopping? Have you found the love of your life and do you carefully nurture and spend time renewing that love or are you too busy acquiring new things? Are you working on the three things needed for happiness or are you working on acquiring more “things?”