When I was growing up,
My dad used to say something I didn't fully understand at the time.
He'd look at me and say,
Son,
If a teacher or someone at school asks you what you want to be when you grow up,
Say,
I want to be happy.
Now,
As a kid,
That didn't make much sense.
Everyone else's parents were talking about getting good grades,
Going to college,
Finding a career,
Building a future.
Mine was talking about happiness,
As if it were something you could just decide to have.
At first,
I brushed it off.
I thought,
Sure,
Dad,
That sounds nice.
But the world doesn't really work that way.
I thought happiness came after success,
After you got the job,
After you made the money,
After you proved yourself.
But as I got older,
I started to notice something.
I met people who had the careers everyone said you should want.
The high-paying jobs,
The nice houses,
The impressive titles,
And yet,
They seemed empty.
Burned out,
Stressed,
Always chasing the next thing.
I also met people who didn't have much at all.
But they left easily.
They took time for their families.
They woke up each day genuinely grateful.
And that's when my dad's words started to make sense from those years before.
He wasn't saying that work doesn't matter.
No,
No.
He wasn't saying to be lazy or aimless.
What he was saying is that happiness isn't the result of success.
It's the foundation of it.
For it.
If you wake up every day miserable,
Focusing yourself into a path that drains you,
Then no amount of money or recognition is going to fill that hole.
But if you wake up with gratitude,
Curiosity,
Purpose,
If you find meaning in what you do and who you are,
Then even small things can feel like victories.
My dad lived that truth.
He worked hard.
Owned his own business.
But yet,
He always made time for what mattered.
Whether that was kayaking or four-wheeling or just tinkering around the yard.
He taught me that life isn't about waiting for happiness to arrive someday.
It's about creating it.
Right here.
In the middle of the chaos.
In the right now.
And here's the thing.
Happiness isn't about pretending life is perfect.
No.
It's about choosing your attitude even when it is not.
It's about saying I am going to find something good in this moment.
Even when things are hard.
When I finally understood that everything shifted,
I stopped asking what job will make me successful and started asking what kind of life will make me fulfilled,
Right?
So I stopped worrying so much about what other people thought I should do and started focusing on what actually lit me up inside.
One of which is recording these meditations.
And I can tell you this.
When you choose happiness first,
The rest of your life starts to align.
You attract people who share that energy.
You start noticing opportunities you couldn't see before.
You begin to build a life that feels authentic,
Not just impressive from the outside.
So if you take one thing from what my dad taught me,
Let it be this.
Your happiness is not a reward you earn at the end of a successful career.
It is a decision you make in the here and now.
Every day you have a choice.
You can chase the image of success that somebody else defined for you.
Or you can slow down and ask,
What actually brings me joy?
What makes me feel alive?
What would it look like to build my life around that?
And for me,
That is meditation and teaching and instructing and creative writing and poetry.
And so when you start chasing that happiness and choosing it,
Not someday,
But today,
Right now,
Just a little bit,
You'll find that everything else starts to fall into place.
So my dad was right,
Per usual.
Don't just chase a career.
Choose to be happy.
