difference between being dead and not
living and I want you to hold that
thought for just a second now the CDC
tells us that heart disease takes more
life every single year in America than
any other ailment but what if i told you
that i might have discovered something
that actually takes more life and heart
disease and the crazy thing about it is
not too many people are aware of it the
way i came across this is I found some
information from the Harris group that
reported that two out of three Americans
are admitting that they’re not very
happy and this didn’t sit right with me
two out of three Americans in a place
where where you can learn and grow and
progress where you can live where you
want to live where you can do what you
want to do where you can be whoever you
want to be two out of three of us are
reporting that we’re not very happy I
couldn’t wrap my mind around this
because we have a population of 320
million people and sixty-seven percent
of that that’s a lot of people who are
unhappy so I built a little graphic now
this represents the u.s. population
there are 320 figures with each figure
representing a million of us so if this
is the entire US population then this
would be the population who are
admitting that they’re not very happy
and again this didn’t sit right with me
because of the opportunities that we
have so I thought how why what’s causing
this unhappiness and so naturally i
looked at my own life I looked at times
when maybe I wasn’t as happy as I could
have been or I should have been really
and that’s when I discovered this
epidemic this disease that I argue takes
more life and stops us from living more
than any other ailment we’ve ever seen
now before I tell you exactly what it is
I
share with you kind of what it looks
like when I was 14 15 years old I was
one of the youngest kids in high school
it was my first year of high school I
didn’t have a car I didn’t have a
driver’s license and I I kept getting
swirlies all too often they dip your
head in the toilet and flush I heard
somebody go oh you got him too I feel my
pain now jokes aside 14 15 years old
first year high school and I kept
telling myself I’ll be happy when I’m a
senior because when i’m a senior I’m
talked about top dog at the school I
have a car I’ll be able to do what I
want to do fingers crossed swirlies will
stop and I kept telling myself I’ll be
happy when I become a senior well my
senior year came and it wasn’t
everything I thought it was going to be
so I started telling myself you know
what I’ll be happy when I graduate
that’s when i’ll be happy when i
graduated started working that got
really old really quick and I started
telling myself man i’ll be happy when i
get to college cuz then I that’s when
the fun starts I can start to be my own
person when I got to college and I was
stressed from exams and studying and
having very little money and I started
telling myself I’ll be happy when I get
into my career and you very easily start
to recognize this pattern of constantly
saying i will be happy when and that’s
when I discovered this epidemic this
disease that stops us from living it’s
I’m not kidding I’ve defined it as the
subtle aggressive lie we tell ourselves
that we will be happy when some future
event takes place and the terrifying
thing about happy when itís is that it
actually doesn’t explicitly make us
unhappy happy when I just is not what
makes you this can fill discontent
matter of fact happy when I just says
you know what you can be happy you will
be happy just not right now happy when
itís says the feeling of sadness that
feeling of anger that feeling again of
discontent that’s all justified and it’s
okay that you feel that way you should
feel that way because happiness it’s
it’s in the future for you the problem
with putting our happiness off into the
future is that the future never really
gets here so before we know it or 40 50
60 years old having spent the last 30
years of our life saying I will be happy
when and that’s why I argued that this
disease takes more life than any ailment
we’ve ever seen and if there is truly no
difference between being dead and not
living then we have to do something
about it so that’s the bad news the good
news is I I also think I might have
found the cure and it’s three simple
ingredients that if we employ we can
fight happy when itís and the reason
why these are the three remedies is
because every instance every scenario
every problem that is tied back to happy
at when itís can be traced back to one
of these three things and they are
perspective action and relationships so
to finish I want to talk about these
three things quickly and I want us to
understand first what are they second
why are they relevant and third how do
they combat the disease so first
perspective and what I mean by
perspective is the way we view the world
see perspective is is
the lens by which we view life through
and much like much like my glasses
they’re the proper prescription for me
so they allow me to see my life more
clearly if I have a proper perspective
if you have a proper perspective it
allows you to see life more clearly and
the reason why this is still relevant is
because it keeps small problems small
and when we’re faced with a big problem
perspective says yes acknowledge there’s
a big problem but a proper perspective
says don’t focus on the problem focus on
what’s my next step an unhealthy
perspective says I’ll be happy when my
significant other or my immediate family
change I’ll be happy when my boss or my
colleagues change i’ll be happy when you
know what i’ll be happy when i get that
new marble countertop in my house that’s
when i’ll be happy but a healthy
perspective says i’m happy i don’t have
to go through life alone a healthy
perspective says i’m glad that i get a
work with a diverse group of people that
undoubtedly make me a better person a
healthy perspective says that marble
countertop it will look nice in my house
but i’m just happy that i have a roof
that’s the first ingredient the first
step to combating happy when itís
second is action and what I mean by
action is working towards something of
value for you or in the words of my
mentor he said working towards something
that’s going to outlive you and the
reason why this is so important is
because the wall street journal just
recently reported and this is fantastic
news this is a great news Wall Street
Journal said job satisfaction is higher
than it’s been in a decade right now job
satisfaction has hit its peak in 10
years which is great news until you hear
that that great news is forty-eight
percent which means that over half of
working Americans are unhappy with the
way that they’re spending over half of
their day I would argue that we are not
working towards something of value for
us we’re not working towards something
that will outlive us because if we were
forty-eight percent of us sorry
fifty-two percent of us wouldn’t be
dissatisfied with our job satisfaction
now how do we do that how do we
accomplish this what will leave us
satisfied and Forbes magazine they
looked at all the factors of job
satisfaction they looked at pay benefits
who your bosses where you work who you
work with and none of those were the
number one factor of job satisfaction
the number one factor was simply
interest in the work you’re involved in
so it doesn’t matter if you’re a first
responder or an educator or a
stay-at-home mom or you work at a bakery
if you find interest in the work that is
working towards something of value for
you that’s the second ingredient third
and finally arguably the most important
are our relationships now one of my
favorite speaker authors another small
town Idaho boy the late Jim Rohn he
would argue that were the average of the
five people that we spend the most time
with so when I say relationships I don’t
mean just our significant others I don’t
mean just our immediate family I mean
everybody around us the people that
influence us the most and I happen to
agree with Jim Rohn that we are the
average of the people that we come in
contact with the most and the reason why
this is so relevant is because we can’t
help but be affected by those who we
invest in and who we allowed to invest
in us i have this sign up in my
classroom i’m a high school teacher and
this is something i share with my
students you can’t stay dry in a pool
it’s pretty obvious thought and as it
relates to relationships is you can’t
expect to jump into a pool and not get
away so we can’t expect it if we’re
always hanging around negative angry
complaining people that we’re not going
to be negative angry complainers and
that’s an idea that I share with my
students which is so obvious to us from
the outside looking in but if we’re
surrounded by it sometimes it’s hard to
see
so ladies and gentlemen I don’t share
this idea with you just for the sake of
sharing an idea I share this idea with
you because I believe that there is an
epidemic actually not just in our
country but in the world and I do
believe it takes more life away than any
other ailment we’ve ever seen and our
first speaker steven hatch he said he
said listen we’re always finding
ourselves in a place of either
fulfilling our needs fulfilling our
wants or trying to leave a legacy I
honestly believe that if we ask
ourselves what perspective am i keeping
what action am i working towards what
relationships am i working on we can
very easily go from the first or second
step to the third step of leaving a
legacy and if there truly is no
difference between being dead and not living what are you gonna do about it