“Life Fulfillment is neither a direct goal nor a single goal; it is a by-product of multiple goals in all walks of your life.”
Human beings deserve to lead a heavenly life on this planet, rather than living in multiple hells in some or other facets of their lives. In other words, everyone deserves to lead a heavenly life on this planet before aiming for an eternal heaven. It is important to understand that leading a heavenly life is not necessarily leading a life of pleasures and comforts. It is more about leading a meaningful and purpose-driven life with sustainable happiness, inner peace, life fulfillment, and contentment.
Paradoxically, there are more people on this planet, who deprive of the true-life fulfillment and contentment in their lives. We are living in one or the other form of life hells and there are no exceptions of being rich or poor, literate or illiterate, male or female, and irrespective of one’s faith, ethnicity, caste, and creed, we all are subject to the nature’s law of equality.
When I was fourteen years old, I was a school dropout due to prolonged financial distress in my family-run business, which shook my family’s fortunes and peace. In my thirst for life fulfillment, since those early years of my life, subconsciously I gravitated and inclined towards unfolding the underlying factors that differentiate successful and unsuccessful people, happier and unhappy or distressed people in their lives. Since a majority of my young age involved growing up in an unhappy and distressed batch, my curiosity-magnified year on year to figure out those unknown factors in a thirst to lead a happier and more successful life.
Over the years, I realized both success and happiness are independent of each other and it is not necessarily to be dependent. What amazed me the most is that both success and happiness are short-lived, based on my own life experience and observations from people within my known circles and network. Moreover, over a period I was amazed to witness there was a sharp decline in happier people, some of the rich became poor down the lane in five to ten years’ time span.
The opposite was also true, where some people transformed from being poor to rich and from an unhappy to a happier state. It was like a life’s rollercoaster and in fact, this pattern was witnessed across all sections of people irrespective of their financial and social status. Now it has been around thirty years of my obsessive study, during the initial years I didn’t take my observations seriously. Since I had a limited circle and network where I presumed that it may not be a true reflection of the entire world.
However, in the last twenty years, I gained a global reflection on happiness and life fulfillment, during my travel across the Indian sub-continent and over ten other countries including the United States, Thailand, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, UAE, and other Middle East countries on my professional assignments, were my findings remained intact without much variance. Wherever I traveled, even during my family vacation to various countries, I carried my curiosity to unfold the factors behind people’s fulfillment. What I found in all those years across the globe was that the fundamentals were the same for being happy and fulfilled, irrespective of their backgrounds and socioeconomic factors. It may sound philosophical, but the hard reality is that life fulfillment does not come from material things or possessions alone.
There have been tons of studies on the impact of more wealth, materialistic pleasures, and social status on fulfillment. Studies have found that wealth is required and it is a part of happiness, but above a certain level it does not yield more happiness, in fact, it could lead to a diminishing effect on the overall happiness index by slipping into anxiety, depression, fear of losing, falling into toxic addictions, deteriorating health, and could fracture family relations. It does not mean your achievements, money, fame, or lavish lifestyle are less important.
The fact is that you may find short-term gratifications in all those lifestyle pleasures and comforts but over a period, it loses its charm and you may look for life fulfillment in new material things once your happiness fades. Eventually, you will drift into this cycle, which is a never-ending loop until you realize the true essence of your life fulfillment and contentment, or you may regret it on your deathbed.
What is the point of amassing riches or rising to fame if they don’t give you true happiness or inner peace? What is the point of being the richest person if you wake up every morning with stress, fear of losing, and depression? What is the point of you being blissful with inner peace, but you are deprived of basic life essentials? We are supposed to experience our lives to the fullest in all facets of life. When we are counting our last minutes on the deathbed to bid this existence goodbye, we ought to be fully satisfied with the days we have lived, the people we have loved, the relationships we have built, and the principles we stood for. We ought to be satisfied with the changes we have pioneered, the places we visited, the things we have achieved, the tears we have cried, and the things we have suffered.
Remember, fulfillment is not just joy or happiness, but also tears and sorrows too. It is not just success and achievements but failures and lessons as well, where a fulfilled life is the sum total of all those human experiences. It does not mean money is bad, it is the most essential part of one’s life to fulfill basic human needs and aesthetic fulfillments and it is important that one attains financial freedom, but it should not be an obsessive pursuit beyond this at the cost of your other life treasures.
The reality is that most people are living in the two extreme ends. Where in one extreme, some are suffering from excess money and are obsessive about more money, who trade wealth over health, family over career, and gratifications over fulfillment. On the other extreme, some people, mostly underprivileged and poor, are suffering due to scarcity of money, they are starving to death or living in miserable conditions and are deprived of basic life essentials. Even middle-income people who constitute a major chunk of the world population do suffer from not having enough money for their aesthetic fulfillments and they hardly attain their financial freedom.
Moreover, positive psychology and modern-day philosophy say that human beings are emotional creatures and the bigger pie of life fulfillment comes from emotional things rather than material possessions like a big home, luxury car, lavish lifestyle, etc. Emotional things like harmonious family relationships, a healthy workplace, healthy social life, spiritual awareness, caring and sharing with people, etc., contribute to overall emotional well-being. There are people, who have attained the highest material possessions and are emotionally attached to non-material things too, despite this they lack life fulfillment. What is that preventing them from their life fulfillment?
Spiritual philosophies and many empirical studies in positive psychology are in congruence that we need to create a feeling of happiness in the present, regardless of our circumstances. It says that true-life fulfillment and contentment is a deep-seated sense of accepting who and where we are at any given moment. It is about living in present in a conscious and blissful state, enjoying simple things to live in the moment, and practicing mindfulness rather than focusing on the past or the future. Then why do so many people still lack inner peace and contentment despite practicing spirituality? What is preventing them from life contentment?
Well, the answer to the above questions is that the majority of the world’s population simply lacks the true essence of life fulfillment. It may sound harsh, but the fact is they simply lack a holistic view and complete awareness of life fulfillment and contentment. In other words, the hard reality is that most of them pursue life fulfillment ingredients in bits and pieces, which never forms a meaningful shape, or they often are stuck in a few ingredients and give up in the process.
While some people get obsessive about certain ingredients and attain the highest mastery level, they simply ignore other essential ingredients, which is not good in the end. For example, some people obsessively amass massive wealth and in the process, they disconnect from family, or social or spiritual life, which is no good. One needs to understand life’s basic principle, where after a certain level of wealth, the next million is not going to revolutionize our lives; likewise, many such things or external possessions after a certain level will not revolutionize our lives.
History shows many people who rose to the highest professional fame or accomplishment in their lives but often are deprived of their emotional or mental well-being and some lack their social or spiritual well-being. Some people attain internal peace and are spiritually enlightened, but they deprive of basic essentials, and some may even struggle for two meals a day. Some people inherit massive wealth, either self-made or through parental legacy but they lack financial literacy and financial discipline, which eventually leads to bankruptcy or financial distress.
In all the above examples, they are heading towards the opposite direction of life fulfillment, where it is imminent that eventually, they fall apart in their lives. I was one among them who was chasing life fulfillment without having complete awareness of life’s essential ingredients and I was stuck in accomplishments and lifestyle pursuits. I was leading a life with the emotional and spiritual balance to an extent, but I could not reach closer to my life fulfillment despite being successful in the material world and being a peak performer in my professional career.
I often changed my jobs and work locations across the continents, due to the internal noise in search of my life fulfillment. I found my life purpose late in my life to pursue my passion. I took the courage to quit my corporate career in early 2018 to pursue my entrepreneurship and farming dreams. However, my real transformation happened during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 after my complete family sailed through a traumatic phase after testing positive for COVID-19. The standstill life pause for a while during the pandemic days uncovered intuitive dots from my past life experiences.
The deep-rooted self-reflection enabled me to connect those dots from my experiences and it redefined my life purpose and vision, in all facets of life with new perspectives on my life fulfillment and contentment. This eventually led to authoring my first book titled ‘Your Life Graduation’ which encapsulates all the essential life ingredients in the form of ‘Ten Life Fulfillment Empires.’ They include Right Mindset, Personaliset, Healthset, Familyset, Heartset, Professionalset, Financialset, Socialset, Spiritualset, and Philanthropicset. ‘Your Life Graduation’ is all about making heaven out of living hells by embracing essential life ingredients and attaining basic mastery in all those ten fulfillment empires and sustaining it throughout one’s life journey to lead a life with true fulfillment and contentment.
Where every life fulfillment empire is equally important to lead your life graduation journey. Simply because every fulfillment empire matters to every other fulfillment empire either directly or indirectly. One can say, “I am doing well in all fulfillment empires but except in one. Does it affect my life fulfillment?” Of course, the answer is a big “YES,” it diminishes whatever good you have attained in every other fulfillment empire, where you may not see it instantly, but it is inevitable. The opposite is also true, whatever good happens in one empire, it cascades and complements every other fulfillment empire.
Your Life Graduation is a precise masterpiece enriched with decades of my life learnings, my life experiences, and the wisdom acquired from the best brains of the world who made significant contributions to the human history of this world. It is a practical “self-awareness blueprint,” toward leading a fulfilling life, with sustainable happiness, and contentment. It maneuvers one from being drowning in an ocean of self-help literature in the form of information overload on the path toward one’s life fulfillment and contentment.
I believe everyone deserves to attain their life graduation and you too. I wish you all the success, a joyous life with sustainable happiness, and life fulfillment.
“Life Graduation is all about leading a fulfilled life with contentment by attaining basic life mastery in all the fulfillment empires of your life.”
Comments