The desire to live
well is as old as age. Everybody desires a life that is happy and well lived.
To live well, however,
one must ask questions about life; after all, life is about asking questions
and finding intelligent answers to the questions asked. Living for life is
never easy because it requires wisdom, which is essentially finding answers to
questions about life and living. In the Bible, Jesus said: “Ask, and it
shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find . . .” (Matthew 7:7) In real
life, we must ask ourselves questions at all times.
Asking questions is introspection,
which is a process of self-reflection, without which there is no self-awareness
and hence no personal growth and development. A static life is never a life
well lived. Therefore, asking questions is self-empowering wisdom—a life-skill
tool necessary for the art of living well.
Why is that?
It is because the kind of
questions you ask determines the kind of life you are going to live. Your
questions trigger a set of mental answers, which may lead to actions or
inactions, based on the choices you make from the answers you have obtained.
Remember, your life is always the sum of all choices you make in the process.
“While we are free to choose our
actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.”
Stephen R. Covey
The art of asking questions is
your source of wisdom in the art of living well.
A Simple But Difficult Question
Human life is complex, and living
is complicated. In order to truly understand what life is all about, you must
distill life to one simple but difficult question: “Am I happy?”
This is a simple question, but the
answer may not be as simple and straightforward as you may think. This simple
question is about life, which is never simple; living for life may, indeed, be
very complicated, especially for those who are always unhappy.
If your life is getting more
complicated, you may have problems with life and living. If, on the other hand,
you never have problems with feelings of anger, fear, frustration, or
you never have felt that life is meaningless, you are probably not
human.
Thinking Questions
Am
I really happy?
my life getting increasingly simpler or more complicated?
Generally speaking, the purpose of living is two-fold: to enjoy
life, and to expand happiness.
But how can one enjoy life
if one is not happy by nature, or how can one expand happiness if one
has no idea what happiness is all about? Indeed, living for life begins with
that simple question: “Am I happy?”
You may want to ask another
poignant question: “Why would one even bother to ask or answer that question if
one is already unhappy with life?”
So, if you wish to be happy, you
must ask yourself on a regular basis that one simple question: “Am I happy?”
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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