When I read about Alex Shalman’s Happiness Project, I thought it was a unique and noble endeavor.  It started off as a series of interviews in which Alex asked people 5 questions about happiness.  The people he interviewed ranged from A-List bloggers to NY Times best-selling authors to experts who researched happiness, and many other individuals.  He did 34 of these interviews, which he links to on his blog. 

Then Alex started the Group Writing Project to make the process more interactive.  He asked his readers to take the questions, think about them, and answer them themselves.  One way to do this is through a blog post, which I obviously decided to do (see below).  If you do that, Alex will add a link to your entry in the main Happiness Project page, and he’ll link to you among his newest group of Happiness Project participants in his periodic updates of where the Happiness Project is going.  That means you get two links from a Page Rank 4 blog, as well as exposure to tens of thousands of people.  That’s a great deal.

Like Alex, I think that happiness is a thread that binds us all–from the most selfish individuals to the most selfless ones.  I also think it relates directly to the topics I cover in this blog.  When I talk about achieving wealth and breaking away from the employee world, I’m not really talking about money as a material concept.  Instead, I’m trying to illustrate that each of us has a talent that is unique.  Laboring away as an employee often doesn’t allow us to take that talent and flourish.  Identifying a way to seize that talent, develop it, and succeed is a guaranteed recipe not only for success, but for the happiness we derive from that success and fulfillment.

Here are my answers to Alex’s questions:

1) How do you define happiness?  Happiness is having all the time I want to enjoy my family.  That’s it.  It’s not money.  It’s not health (although that’s a plus).  All I want is time.  Too often, I wake up at 6 a.m. and feel like I’m already behind.  That’s what a job does to you, but I have to work to make a living.  So what do I do?  There is only so much time in a day that I can devote to my family because of work, commuting, sleeping, etc.  The main obstacle, of course, is work.  Thus, in order to increase the time I can spend with my family–and thereby increase my happiness–I have to develop a way to make money without having to go to a job.  Sounds counterintuitive.  But in practicality, it makes sense, and it’s something I know I can achieve.            

2) On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?  When I was a child, my happiness ranged from a 7 to a 10.  Now, my happiness is a 10 when I’m at home with my family, and it’s about a 6 or a 7 when I’m at work (and a 3 or a 4 on bad days). 

3) What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness?  (And how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day?)  Several things bring me happiness on a daily basis.  Seeing my wife and daughter brings me total happiness.  In addition, writing and expressing my thoughts and beliefs about money, business, and entrepreneurship on this blog brings me happiness because I feel like I’m learning and training myself to become an entrepreneur.  Other smaller things also bring me happiness: (a) driving home from work (haha); (b) eating good food; (c) drinking wine; (d) watching any of my favorite TV shows; and (e) reading.   

4) What things take away from your happiness?  What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?  My job takes away from my happiness.  That’s really it.  I have other fears and worries (like having no money or making sure my family is safe), but those things don’t really make me less happy.  Work, on the other hand, just throws everything out of whack.  I’m trying to lessen its impact on my life by removing it completely.  If I can become a successful entrepreneur–either by starting a business or investing in rental properties–I will be able to accomplish this.  Sounds crazy . . . but it really isn’t. 

5) What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?  Aside from creating more time to spend with my family, in the future I hope to be the perfect role model for my children.  If I can be the person to whom they look for morals and advice, and if I can be the person who makes them happy each and every day of their lives, I will have total happiness.

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