Someone rightly said once : :Life need not be longer but bigger !!
I tried and analyzed that in this fast paced life with cut throat competition all around, what can make life bigger as well as longer at the same time?
From the time we are born to the time we live on this planet, we can theoretically divide the entire life span into 3 phases.
First Phase of Life is what i call as the "Wanting" Phase. This is the phase of life which is dominated by the feeling of "wanting" things, whether love or anything else that the world has to offer. For a typical human, this span lasts from 0 to 25 years or so. Starting form the childhood days till we have our own children, we are dominated by the wanting feeling. We want good friends, we want to play all the time, we want to buy or somehow get all the good things that we see around us, we want a good school, a good college, a good girl friend or a boyfriend, a good wife or husband, and then we want to have our own children... and it goes on. Does it mean that we stop "wanting" things after this phase of life? No, we never stop wanting. But the dominance of this feeling typically goes down after this stage of life. When we "want" things and we get them, it gives us temporary happiness. It is just like the happiness a young one gets once he or she gets a new toy and soon the same toy becomes his reason for sorrow when it is either broken, stolen or lost. You might remember the happiness you got when you bought a new car that you wanted badly, and within a few months (or may be a year), you thought that some other more advanced car would give you more happiness.
The second phase is what i call as the "Becoming" phase.That is when you want to grow in your career or you want to expand your business and want your own company to "become" one of the biggest in its field. Typically from mid 20s till just before the retirement age, you either want to become something big in your organization or you want your own company to become a unique one in the world. That does not mean that you do not "want" things anymore in this phase of life but "becoming" definitely takes priority over "wanting". Some of you may relate to me when we long for "becoming" a senior manager from a manager or to get promoted to the next level relative to our peers. Nothing wrong with this. But did that promotion give us true happiness. It again gave us temporary happiness. We were happy and excited on the new promotion only till we got the congratulatory notes from our peers and friends. A day after that, the stress in the higher role started taking its toll over us. Sometimes, we look back to our career, how happy we were while we were in a junior role.
The third phase is the most critical phase of life from true happiness perspective. I call this as the "Giving" Phase. Typically, we see lot of people post retirement getting more inclined towards helping people and giving whatever bit of their life and money they have been left with. They also start realizing in this phase that they are not going to carry anything with them, so it is better to start giving. And do they need to search the takers ? The world is full of needy. If you feel you cant find one, open any newspaper or news channel and within 10 minutes, you will surely know where the needy are. This phase of "giving" is the only phase out of the three phases which gives you permanent happiness. The smile you bring on someone else' face either by giving money, by giving love or by giving your service brings that permanent feeling of happiness in you.
Though i attributed a few range of years to each phase, there is obviously no rule which governs this. It is upto each individual to decide when he or she wants to move from one phase to another. Some do not touch the 3rd phase ever and spend most of their lives in the first 2 phases only. There is no scarcity of examples in this area. Some reach the 3rd phase at a very young age whether you talk about Mother Teresa or any other great saint. There are more modern examples who have a balanced approach in all 3 phases of life. I can immediately remember people like Bill Gates, Azim Premji, Bill Clinton or other modern stalwarts who, now, after crossing the 2nd phase have started contributing to this society and the world immensely. This is what is giving them true happiness today.
So, it is up to you to decide when you want to shift gears from one phase to another but at least you know what will give you true happiness !! It becomes all the more easier to shift gears to the 3rd phase if you have attained financial freedom in your life. Financial Freedom is not an end by itself but could definitely be a means to achieve true happiness through "Giving". Not only Giving makes us live "bigger", the stress free lifestyle and internal true happiness makes us live longer as well !!
Live longer and bigger !!
Manoj Arora
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/
