The 7th Element is Happiness. All the 6 other Elements are fantastic and important but if you don't have happiness the other 6 don't give you the complete package. This article is just one part of the happiness chapter, there will be more aspects to ponder when I finish the book.
1) Air & Water
2 Supplements
3) Nutritious Food, as close to the Life Source as Possible
4) Exercise
5) Stress Reduction
6) The Proper Amount of Sleep
7) Happiness
HAPPINESS
Here is my personal Life Experience on Happiness.
Pictured below are two who were with me on my sailing odyssey, looking into their eyes you know they are experiencing beautiful happiness.
Happiness
Happiness is a
mental state that can be reached by people in the ghetto or by multi
billionaires.
This is my concept of happiness that I have learned through my life.
I lived in the country ghetto when I was growing up. We didn't have running water in our house in South Jersey. In the winter when we had to walk over a city block through the woods to get water from an artesian spring it was an experience. The experience was more complicated when we had to take our weekly bath because my Mother had to heat the buckets of water on the stove so that all four of us kids could take a bath in the hot water. You didn't want to be last. It would have taken more than all day, (if we were all to have fresh water), to carry and heat all the buckets of water needed.
This is my concept of happiness that I have learned through my life.
I lived in the country ghetto when I was growing up. We didn't have running water in our house in South Jersey. In the winter when we had to walk over a city block through the woods to get water from an artesian spring it was an experience. The experience was more complicated when we had to take our weekly bath because my Mother had to heat the buckets of water on the stove so that all four of us kids could take a bath in the hot water. You didn't want to be last. It would have taken more than all day, (if we were all to have fresh water), to carry and heat all the buckets of water needed.
Were we happy, very
much so, our parents loved us and we knew it. My Father made $5,000 per year
and we always had enough to eat and my Polish Mother made breakfast, lunch, and
dinner for us that was always a festive occasion. We raised chickens and turkeys
and had a fantastic garden. We sold some of our turkeys to people in our town
at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We all had many
chores to keep the family functioning. Through the years I had to feed the
animals, bury our garbage, take care of the garden, wash the dishes, deliver
newspapers for the Philadelphia Bulletin seven days a week, and my biggest
responsibility was to go into the forest and chop down trees for our furnace to
keep us warm through the late fall, winter, and early spring. We didn't have
money for coal to feed our massive furnace in the basement so it was my
brother's and my responsibility to gather the wood and saw it into logs for the
furnace until I was 11, when my brother was about to be drafted into the Army.
He decided to join
the Air Force and became an officer and was the navigator on bombers for the
Strategic Air Command, he flew all over the world. He was the only cadet in his
class who had not gone to college, after the Air Force he went to college.
Now it was my
responsibility along with my other chores to get the fuel necessary to keep us
warm by myself. I went out into the forest every day after school and riding my
bike as I delivered newspapers on my route. I had to find appropriate size
trees, chop them down, and cut them into lengths that I could drag home. I
would then start cutting the trees into logs to fit into the furnace in the
basement. When Dad got home from work he would help me finish cutting the trees
into logs.
My Father left for
work at 5:00 AM every morning to fight for an opportunity to work every day on
the docks of Philadelphia, loading and unloading ships. My Father was a
heavyweight boxer, a drummer in a band, and a pitcher on a baseball team in his
younger days so he knew how to fight. In the movie "Cinderella Man",
Russell Crow depicts an older professional boxer who has to work on the docks
to support his family. In the movie he is shown outside the gate of one of the
ship loading areas. The foreman inside the gate throws the little metal chits
over the fence and whoever had one after the fight could work that day. I
didn't know that my Father had to do that until his partner at work told me
they stood back to back with their foot on a chit until they had knocked down
everyone near them so they could pick up their chits and work that day. I was
told this by his partner at my Father's Funeral, my Father never told us he had
to do that and he never came home without work.
Back to the forest,
I would go out alone and chop down trees, even back then I knew not to just
take all the trees close to the house. The only trouble was that as the years
went by I had to go further into the forest to get the trees and drag them
back. I still remember the echo of my ax cutting into the tree as snow was
falling all around me, it was romantic, I was happy, I was contributing to the
happiness of my family. When it was freezing cold outside at night and we were
all warm in the house, I felt good, we all contributed to our survival and I
think a team effort in the face of adversity creates happiness when you
succeed.
Today it is harder
to find happiness, our children are bored and very few contribute to the family
unit, my children included. I give them chores but they are not necessary for
our survival and they know it.
When I was in my
30's I went back to survival mode and lived on my sailboat for three years. I
wanted to find out what I was made of and wanted to see if I could live as our
ancestors did, as hunters and traders, without depending on our complicated
system to supply our needs. I lived for five months that way, in the 700
islands of the Bahamas, without any money, and became extremely healthy and
extremely happy.
I have lived life
through many financial cycles since my younger years, with large homes with a
staff of 4 nanny's, a housekeeper, a chef, and a gardener. We had many millions
of dollars invested in the market with our net worth changing as much as a million
dollars in one day. Was I happy at those
times, yes, but I was more happy when I was living on the edge, where almost
everything I did was tied to my survival. Your moments of living on the edge
are your slices of life where you are the most alive.
When you are rich
and everything is possible and nothing is an insurmountable obstacle, it gets a
bit boring. No doubt, there is some genuine happiness here.
Though, in the times
of adversity and triumph, that is where you find the most intense happiness.
There is a message to this story and it is not that you should leave a comfortable life and go an a dangerous adventure to find ultimate happiness. The message is that happiness is in your mind, I could have told a different story about how terrible it was growing up. All of us can find some kind of happiness anywhere. There are stories about people finding happiness in concentration camps.
Happiness is a tricky thing, you can not have ultimate happiness if there is no conflict in your life. We are hard wired to feel happiness when we succeed over adversity. If you have everything and lack conflicts, find a cause, help people achieve success, start a company with a product or service you believe in.
If you are unhappy because you are living under dangerous conditions, have a frustrating job, a bad relationship, problems with your kids, or personal mental or physical difficulty, you have a conflict and in working your way out of it you will find happiness.
Happiness is arguably the most important element of the "7 Elements" to a long, healthy life. I am writing the book, when it is finished there will be a long chapter on ways to find happiness.
Thanks for reading
Joe Hammond 11/18/2015
There is a message to this story and it is not that you should leave a comfortable life and go an a dangerous adventure to find ultimate happiness. The message is that happiness is in your mind, I could have told a different story about how terrible it was growing up. All of us can find some kind of happiness anywhere. There are stories about people finding happiness in concentration camps.
Happiness is a tricky thing, you can not have ultimate happiness if there is no conflict in your life. We are hard wired to feel happiness when we succeed over adversity. If you have everything and lack conflicts, find a cause, help people achieve success, start a company with a product or service you believe in.
If you are unhappy because you are living under dangerous conditions, have a frustrating job, a bad relationship, problems with your kids, or personal mental or physical difficulty, you have a conflict and in working your way out of it you will find happiness.
Happiness is arguably the most important element of the "7 Elements" to a long, healthy life. I am writing the book, when it is finished there will be a long chapter on ways to find happiness.
Thanks for reading
Joe Hammond 11/18/2015
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