Did You Think About Being Happy as a Child?
As a child, did you think about being happy? What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you now what you wanted to become?
When we ask children what they want to be when they grow up, their responses might be more idealistic than realistic, or so us adults think. Some children dream of becoming astronauts while others might want to grow up to be like the friendly neighborhood superhero, Spider-Man. As skeptical as we are, we would much rather accept the first answer with a strong sense of doubt and laugh at the second shortly before telling our children that Spider-Man doesn’t exist in the real world.
Children are not very articulate, but if you pay close attention, you might notice that their aspirations are synonymous with “being happy”. Spider-Man is obviously not real, but the idea of him is. Peter Parker is an altruistic individual who wants to make his city a better place for everyone. In doing so, he achieves happiness, a state of mind that is elusive to many of us. In a way, by rejecting our children’s dreams, we might be crushing their chances of happiness.
We teach our children what our environments and experiences have taught us. We shape their definitions of “success” and “failure”. We tell them, either directly or indirectly, that they should strive for big houses, fancy cars, designer clothes, and high-salaried jobs. We give them the idea that wealth guarantees happiness when in reality, it doesn’t always.
As someone who has gone from being homeless to a billionaire, I can tell you that more money means more problems. Even though I live a very successful life, a lifestyle most would consider luxurious, I don’t live a life that is stress-free. As an owner of nineteen businesses and a real estate developer in Thailand’s wealthiest location, my life has plenty of stress at any given time.
As my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Joe Vitale says, “Money is neutral, not good or bad. It’s how you choose to use it that makes all the difference”. Through vibrational giving, I’ve learned to use money in a way that brings me a sense of joy.
I also discovered that one of the easiest ways to be happy is for us to create our own happiness. We are, after all, creators of our own reality. We should find what spreads a smile across our faces and fills our hearts with warmth and do more of it, even if it involves putting on a Spider-Man costume and helping the neighborhood’s elderly cross the street.
-Andres Pira
About Andres Pira – philanthropist, real estate tycoon, author, speaker, and global citizen. Andres Pira enjoys living in Thailand, where his journey began from ไม่มีที่อยู่อาศัยให้กับมหาเศรษฐี.
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