Happiness Is...
Jasan gan
Happiness is the feeling of satisfaction I get when I work up enough courage, strength, or skill to be able to perform something that I was not able to do a week ago.
Happiness is when an unsuspecting fan of mine walks up to me and genuinely tells me that I am his inspiration for action.
Happiness is when a patient asks me if tips are typical in a chiropractic office because he believes that my services are worth more than what I’m charging.
Happiness is the sound of my mother and father arguing over who’s going to be able to cook dinner for me when I come home to visit.
Happiness is seeing my sister’s camera flash and my mother shedding a tear as I walk across the stage to accept my Doctorate of Chiropractic degree.
Happiness is when I’m sitting across from a friend I haven’t seen for almost a year and we’re talking as if we saw each other yesterday.
Happiness is the pleasant silence I demonstrate from my loss of words I get when I look at someone that makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world that matters.
This is happiness. I have been blessed with a life that allows me to pursue my true passions with the people that matter the most; with a life of abundance that makes imagining having more than what I have now nearly impossible. I have a loving family and handful of friends that support me through my failures and share moments of triumph. My career as a chiropractor allows me to feel as if I haven’t worked a day of my life. As a practitioner whose livelihood depends on the ability of my body to move and move others, it seems paradoxical for me to involve myself in a sport that puts my life and limb at risk. Why risk it? The answer is simple, to deny weightlifting would mean to deny a passion, and to deny a passion would mean that I would be denying life itself. These are all the things that make me happy.
Although I am hopeful that many of you reading this share my sentiments on what happiness is, I am not naïve enough to believe that everyone has been fortunate enough to have found the passions and be surrounded by those who support and love them. If you are among the latter, allow me to offer a small piece of advice.
As a practitioner that specializes in the treatment and maintenance of the human body, naturally my answer to happiness starts with the health and wellness of your body. Think back to the last time you were happy. If you are anything like me, thoughts of lifting heavy implements and putting them back down come to mind, namely an Olympic weightlifting barbell. Or if you’re a parent, thoughts of playing with your children fill your consciousness. If you’re imagining yourself with a new pair of shoes, even those are gained by working a job that you were healthy enough to be present for. When you don’t have your health, happiness is evidently a bit harder to come by. When your shoulder is aching, the gains you made at the gym will start to disappear. When your muscles stiffen up, letting your children use you as a jungle gym become admittedly more cumbersome. When the plantar fascia on the soles of your feet begin to act up, your new shoes will collect dust because you’ll be stuck at home without an opportunity to show them off. Achieving physical health is the entire picture of happiness, but I believe that this is the first step in a worthwhile journey in realizing a life that is operating at full capacity. At the end of the day, all I am trying to say is this: your body is the vehicle in which you utilize to attain happiness. Without your health, you don’t have happiness, and without happiness, you don’t really have anything. You were brought into this world with one body, take care of it and it will in turn, take care of you.