AUTHOR: NOAH MURAD

If we examine what it means to "be happy" or "live well," we should logically conclude that a full family life is the answer. (Family, being loosely defined as a group of people you love and trust around you, not necessarily blood relatives). So let's start from the beginning.

Everything that we're trying to do is driven by a goal or ambition of some sort. We have accepted that goal because we're reacting to something internally. Maybe it's to be the biggest or the best at one thing or another. This feeling that we need to 'achieve' comes from something internal. Maybe you want to grow up just like your parents, or perhaps you want to be the total opposite, to name a couple of examples. That feeling is driving us initially. Then, the actions we take are mostly in reaction or according to the instructions of society. Ex: a student wants to buy a business, so he goes to business school. He doesn't want to go to school, but society has told him that this is what he needs to do to learn how to achieve his goals.

We tolerate this because the thought is that once we achieve the goal, we can have the requisite things or status to be able to say to ourselves that we have 'achieved.'

As we go along, we need to know at various points in time if we're "on track." We don't have school grading us anymore, so we start to look at our neighbours. This practice will never result in "living well" because there will always be people doing better than us in the way we measure it. If we keep repeating this practice, it becomes a natural reaction to our achieving anything. Step 1: achieve, step 2: compare, step 3, raise the bar, and repeat. The corporate culture will then tell you to "celebrate your wins" more, but celebrating doesn't address the problem.

This traps us in a cycle of endlessly needing, as opposed to figures who we admire that seem not to need anything. (I don't think I'm saying anything groundbreaking here).

If we already know this and that this road leads nowhere, we can recognize that other people are no longer measuring sticks for how we're doing. What they eat, their morning routine, how they dress, how often they work out, how much money they make, how they manage their business, where they live, how liked they are, etc., isn't relevant information to us.

When we shed this entire thought process as being useful, we have much less to think about during the day. So what's left? Why try to achieve at all?

Outside of yourself, the only thing left is the small group of people we belong to and the traditions we keep. Family can mean different things to different people, and you can define it in any way you want. But however you define them, your family will be settled and appreciative of you. They are the only people who do not require you to be something else or compare your results to others. They are the only people that will focus your mind on important tasks that compound your relationships over time.

The entire exercise of trying to achieve success in business is not to push ourselves for the material rewards. It is to push ourselves beyond limits to gain unique and specific knowledge. This is something we can relay to our families to help them succeed in their lives.