How can you instill happiness into your children's lives from a young age? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Neil Pasricha, NY Times Bestselling Author of The Happiness Equation & The Book of Awesome, on Quora.
Underprogram and overinvest.
The most valuable asset we all have is time. It's fleeting. It's rushing away. It's flying fast. And we'll never be as young as we are right now. So my belief is that nothing replaces time with one or both parents. Walking through fields. Dancing to hip-hop. Piling blocks. Building a fire. Staring at goldfish. Just talking... and cultivating a deep sense of appreciation and love for everything around us in the world.
The sense I want my two young children to have is this:
14 out of every 15 people who have ever lived are dead. (We are the lucky 7 billion of the approx 110 billion who have ever lived). That means 14 out of every 15 people won't see another sunset, eat another bowl of chocolate ice cream, or kiss their kids goodnight, ever again! On top of that, if you have time to read this (or bake this cake or paint this picture, etc.), it means you've got the most valuable asset of all at your fingertips. To keep going on this opportunity curve, if you make more than $5000 a year you're higher than the average world income. If you have post-secondary education, you're in the lucky 7%.
We are all just so lucky. So, so, lucky. We forget this all the time. I know I do! But I think anything that grows and develop this sense of wonder and appreciation is just huge...