We must first know what a happy life is to be able to know how to live a happy life. We human beings are designed to live in relationships with other people. Some people may say that they are happy when they are alone, but what they feel in that situation is comfort without stress and wounds rather than happiness. Living all by yourself means that you need to survive alone in a remote place and think and act only by yourself. For humans to feel happiness, they need to be in human relationships by definition.
We can have all different types of happiness in diverse human relationships such as family relationship, romantic relationship, marriage relationship, parent-child relationship, relationships with friends and coworkers.
To be able to keep going in the right direction for your happiness, you must first examine and analyze your first intention in each relationship. In a given relationship, you had your own ideas about happiness in the relationship when you first started the relationship. You can think about what kind of happiness you had in mind when you first met your boyfriend or girlfriend, when you got married, when you gave birth to your child, and when you started your job. Your first intention in each relationship is your standard for happiness and you must keep making efforts to satisfy your standard of happiness in each relationship to live a happy life.
Secondly, it is important that you and your counterparty keep exchanging ideas and standards of happiness to adjust the mutual goal of happiness through conversations on top of defining individual's standards of happiness. Human relationships always invlove two parties : you and your counterparty. Your counterparty must have had his or her ideas on happiness and the first intention in each relationship. It is not likely that each person's first intention and standards of happiness match exactly those of the counterparty's. This mismatch of people's standards of happiness naturally leads to conflicts and unhappiness in relationships.
Thirdly, you need to take some time to reflect upon the state of your relationship. You can check again for your first intention, whether you are diverting from your first intention, and whether you are making enough and the right kind of efforts to achieve happiness.
It may be impractical and ineffective to reflect upon the state of your relationships every day. Reflecting every day may lead you to look at only trees instead of the forest, so it is recommended that you reflect upon your relationships only every once in a while. Following the suggested steps will allow you to proceed for happiness smoothly and consistently without much deviation from your first intention and relational conflicts.
In the process, it is important to consider not only your own happiness standards but also the counterparty's happiness standards. Neither party can be happy when your happiness standards do not accord with your counterparty's happiness standards. You may feel happy when you have satisfied your own standards, but it is not true happiness if your counterparty has lost his or her happiness. No one can be happy when they are not happy together with their counterparty. Your happiness can be achieved only when your happiness and your counterparty's happiness coexist.
You can live happily with people around you when you accurately understand what standards of happiness you and your counterparty had and have, and periodically reflect upon how you are doing.
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