WARNING: Don’t even think of Filling the Void Until You…

I remember working as an engineer.  I had just graduated from University, started working and thought, “this isn’t any fun,” because it wasn’t.  It was work. Not fun.  But I assumed that having a job and making money would make me happy.

Boy, was I wrong.

Even though I worked as an engineer for seven years and made good money, all that time I knew that something was missing…

…but what?

Filling the Void

When you want something – a job that you love, a successful business, a new car – it doesn’t matter what it is – you expect to DO certain things in order to HAVE what you want.

DOING comes before HAVING.

Makes sense, right?

Here are a few examples:

  • you take action and prepare a killer resume (DOING) so that you can have a job that you love
  • you take action and create an excellent business plan (DOING) so that you can have a flourishing and prosperous business
  • you take action and go to several car dealerships (DOING) so that you can have the perfect car

Nothing too shocking about that.  It takes action to get what you want.

What happens for some people is that they take action perfectly – and some of them even get what they want, but still find that they’re unhappy.

Why?

Be-Do-Have Paradigm

There is this paradigm that’s called the BE-DO-HAVE paradigm.

Maybe you’ve heard of it.

This is how it works.  If you want to HAVE something, you must DO something first. Doing comes before having as I mentioned earlier.

That’s obvious, but here’s what you may not have known.

It’s that BEING always precedes DOING. That means you must first be a certain way before you ever do what’s needed so that you can have what you want.

BE-DO-HAVE

The Big Problem

Most people skip the being and move right into the doing.

The problem with this is that you end up becoming a human-DOING instead of human-BEING.   You keep doing and doing and doing without ever really feeling fulfilled or satisfied.

True fulfillment comes from BEING a certain way first.

This way of being leads you to act and get into the harmony of doing. As you start doing and acting in harmony with who you really are, you start to move with the current in your life as I explain in How to Stay Focused When You Feel Like Giving Up.

So instead of always chasing after the things that you think will make you happy (HAVING), you’re already happy because of your way of being.  This makes life much easier and a lot more fun – and who doesn’t like to have more fun?

“When you come from “happiness,” you do certain things because you are happy – as opposed to the old paradigm in which you did things that you hoped would make you happy.” ~ Neil Donald Walsch

Steve, Being Happy

2 Comments

  • The is no void to fill. There is no filling a void, only raising a mountain. The other perspective comes from a place of toxic perfectionism.

  • good advice

    Reply Reply May 12, 2013

    I always spent my half an hour to read this website’s content daily along with a mug of coffee.

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