The Formula to a Happy Life

I am rehash­ing this post I made sev­eral months back because I think it is good to read it again (for peo­ple who have read it); in any case, it is good to high­light this now, spe­cially after I gave a retreat to col­lege stu­dents around three weeks ago. The last time I directed a silent retreat was three years ago. It was great to have joined that crack group of Jesuits and lay peo­ple who did one-on-one spir­i­tual direc­tion to stu­dents for five days! I directed some col­lege seniors who were about to spend their last semes­ter of col­lege and enter into a dif­fer­ent world. This post is ded­i­cated to them.

Several weeks ago, I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a young man who was ask­ing me about what col­lege course to take in col­lege. And days after that, a for­mer stu­dent who had just grad­u­ated from De La Salle Uni­ver­sity, called me up and asked if he was sup­posed to take the job that was offered to him.

I could have told them to check out my blog’s entries in deci­sion mak­ing (right, that’s a shame­less plug, but only if you click on that link. hehe); instead I talked to them about Jim Collins’ Hedge­hog Concept.

We all know that there really is no for­mula to a happy life. But if there was, I think it would be some­thing like the Hedge­hog Con­cept.

The Greek philoso­pher Archilochus once told the story of The Fox and The Hedge­hog. Like all fables with two ani­mals, the fox is the preda­tor here who wanted to kill, maim and even­tu­ally eat the poor look­ing hedge­hog. And every­time he tries, the hedge­hog would curl up into a tight ball, caus­ing his spines to point out­wards. The fox would try over and over again using dif­fer­ent tac­tics but each time he would be foiled, because each time he tries to go for the hedge­hog, it would curl up into a ball and point his spines outwards.

And Archilo­cus says, the hedge­hog won and lived, because while the fox knows many things, the hedge­hog knows one big thing.

Some peo­ple call it a deeply happy life, oth­ers call it voca­tion, still oth­ers say it is what you are meant to be doing for the rest of your life; but call it all you want, the secret to a happy life is to know your ONE BIG THING.

But how do you know your one big thing? Jim Collins says that our one big thing (or our hedge­hog con­cept) is a con­ver­gence of three aspects of life:

1) Pas­sion. The first cir­cle is your pas­sion. What is it that you would gladly do, even if you’re not paid to do it? There are some things in your life that makes you feel so alive when you’re doing it. It may be play­ing bas­ket­ball, or writ­ing, or design­ing inte­ri­ors. My sis­ter real­ized after 6 years of work­ing in a bank that her pas­sion is really cooking.

Pas­sion has to do with cre­ativ­ity. And just like any activ­ity of cre­ation, when you cre­ate, you’re really mak­ing sense of some­thing inside of you. You’re unleash­ing some­thing pri­mal in you. There is flow. You’re in the zone. You can almost do noth­ing wrong.

2) Skill. The sec­ond cir­cle is your own skills. You can take for granted a lot of things that you do, and then you see some­one else hav­ing such a hard time doing what comes so easy for you, and you real­ize that you

It is like you were actu­ally wired to do it. My best friend paints so well, and I ask myself why paint­ing is so easy for him and so hard for me. Give him a brush, some color and a can­vas and he will cre­ate some­thing beau­ti­ful with it. There are some things that are so easy for you to do, like you were born to do it.

That is your skill. And you have to acknowl­edge that.

3) Eco­nom­ics. The third cir­cle is that of eco­nom­ics. Your pas­sion and your skills have to be able to sup­port your life. The Fil­ipino word for work is hanap buhay after all. It is not just about find­ing life, it is also about earn­ing from it.

Usu­ally, when you have found your pas­sion, and you have found your skills, it is easy to find the eco­nomic engine to sup­port your­self. Some peo­ple focus on the eco­nom­ics first, and lose steam later on because their work, while it pays well, is not their passion.

A friend of mine works in a job that she loves, but is hum­ble enough to admit that it will not sup­port her, so she found a job that will sup­port her WHILE doing that which she loves. Every time her bread and but­ter becomes too stress­ful and a bur­den, she finds her cen­ter once again by doing what she loves. She has also found a way from earn­ing from it, and as she puts it, she’s “a year and a half” from quit­ting her job and doing what she loves full time.

So the next time you ask your­self what will make you happy, think about these three aspects of life and ask your­self if your life finds a con­ver­gence there. Are you pas­sion­ate about what you’re doing? Do you have the skills and the poten­tial to be the best in the world at what you do? Will it sup­port your life and your other dreams?

Only you have the answers to these ques­tions. And your hon­est answers will be the key to a happy and ful­fill­ing life.

You might also want to check out Mal­colm Gladwell’s take on pas­sion and mean­ing­ful work: