Happiness is all about being in tune. If any of your life notes are out of tune, it makes your entire life feel out of tune.
In her book, “The Happiness Project,” happiness expert Gretchen Rubin writes that many studies of happiness conducted worldwide have shown that on a scale from 0 to 100%, the average response is 75%.
75% is okay, right? After all, it is considered a “passing” grade in many schools. (I know from experience). But a 75% happiness rating in life? Who wants to barely “pass” happiness?
The Notes on a Pan
Being a lifelong musician, I like to use the steel drum instrument, a.k.a. “pan,” as a metaphor for life and happiness:
“Happiness is like a steel drum instrument whose notes are perfectly in tune individually and in harmony with each other. No matter what you play on the pan, it comes out sounding happy!“
If all of the notes on a pan are perfectly in tune individually and in harmony with each other when the pan is played, the music can’t help but come out sounding happy. How could it not?
But if one or more of the notes is out of tune, the entire pan will sound out of tune. That’s because the notes that are out of tune don’t resonate with the other notes on the pan.
The Notes of Your Life
But most of us always have one or two areas in our lives that are going out of tune. The constant wear and tear of life itself can be hard on our mind, body, spirit, relationships, finances, etc. This can make our entire life feel out of tune. This can lead to unhappiness.
Picture a pan (you can use the image at the top of this post). Let’s say that the pan represents You, and each of the individual notes on the pan represents significant areas of your life.
For example, I picture my life as composed of eight significant notes: Mind, Body, Spirit, Relationships, Learning, Work, Wealth & Abundance, and Play. You may want to put a different number of notes on your pan or to label them differently. For illustration purposes, I am going to assume that you have eight notes on your pan.
Happiness is About Being In Tune
Now, let’s apply the average, world-wide happiness rating of 75% to the notes on your pan:
If 75% of the notes on your pan are perfectly in tune individually and in harmony with each other, then that means that six out of the eight notes of your life are in tune (8 notes X 75% = 6 notes).
This also means that the remaining two notes on your pan (8 notes X 25% = 2 notes) are out of tune. In other words, two of the notes of your life are out of tune.
What do you think your pan will sound like with 25% of your notes out of tune? Will it sound happy?
My point is this: if the significant areas of your life are aligned and working in harmony together, then you can’t help but feel happy. Your life will resonate.
However, when one or more areas of your life are unaligned and clashing with each other, then you can’t expect to be happy. Your life is dissonant.
Each note of your life impacts the other notes of your life. You can’t segregate them from each other – they are all a part of You.
Life is too short to settle for 75% – and you don’t have to. You can identify which notes are in tune and which notes are out of tune. From there, you can develop a plan to “tune-up” or even add new notes to your life.
Which is the subject of my next few posts beginning with Inside-Out Personal Growth.
No wrong notes,
Mike
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