I write this with a few tears in my eye, as I have chosen the latter. I chose to live life in the lane of Make A Life. Why the tears then? My choices were not the everyday, mainstream, pay your bills efficiently kind of a choice. Nor were they part of the status quo. They did not follow a preordained pathway, anywhere. Did I keep my teaching position and teach other's children when I deeply desired to be home with mine? No. I'd be getting an awesome salary at my teaching job if I stayed -- and as my near 84 year old mom says, "... you could collect a pension, like all the retired teachers do here in Florida." Bottom line: Did I want to give up my life's dream to raise the close knit, loving family the way I felt good about that fed my internal happiness quotient and in alignment with my highest values? I knew if I did not do my Truth I would have regret. Perhaps I may have regret for other things, but not for my core value essence of my undeniable Truth. That is Happiness. I want to invest in that. The Happiness Quotient and it's ROI. It's return on investment.
Alternative. Innovative. Creative. Passionate. Inspired. Unlimited. Conscious. Sustainable. Unique. Authentic. True.
How to make a life, and not a living? What if we were taught just that? Taught to go for your bliss -- your happiness. What if core curriculums were set up for that? What makes a life, rather than what takes a life, is how happy you are. We taught to the goal of survival. To make money, find a career, not to find what makes you happy. But what if we taught to happiness and from that, we made money and learned those skills where we could do anything. Maybe one could change job titles year after year, yet still be going for what makes them happy, for what inspires them. Perhaps another question, and even more important, is why don't we value living life happy and making a life with life skills so much more or equal to core curriculums and why are we not having a track for that?
I have brought this to the attention of many school districts over twelve years ago. Maybe today with bullying on the uprise, suicide, cutting and other destructive behaviors, we can review the why of the symptoms for unhappiness and cultivate happiness from the backend. Do you prefer a child to be happy or reading to state scoring? Perhaps if we catch the child before the unhappiness is fed, we can avoid and add so much to the conversation of living a life worth living. To make a life., and send them off to college, knowing how to cultivate happy.
ENTER I.N.S.P.I.R.E. EDUCATION
My proposal. Imagine Now, Sustainable Passionate Inspired Relevant Education. Relevance is what inspires us and what inspires us is what's relevant. What is relevant and inspirational creates purpose. Experience has taught me if you do not have a motivating and compelling reason to do one thing or another you teach complicity, passivity and negativity, and then you learn you do not matter, so what's the point? But when one can relate themselves to one thing or another within a creative moment and imagine themselves effecting change and having impact, they see their own power and their relevance in a changing world. They can feel and see their imprint for impact which then feeds their reason for being.
This lifts The Happiness Factor. Who does not want to be happy? Who does not wish to find their inspiration to give meaning to living. To make a life. Safe from being bullied from living a life you built, your way? Let's teach our children-our own and those we mentor- that finding happiness and what makes you happy, is the anchor, the drive, the motivation, the side benefit of and the result of a life well lived.
Make a living? Or make a life? Choose.