Defining Health and Happiness

If there were to be a survey of what people want the most in life, there’s little question being healthy and happy will be on top of the list (and probably having more money close behind). However, people often make the mistake of understanding the true meaning of being healthy and happy and often end up chasing the wrong thing.

So what exactly is being healthy and happy?

Let’s first look at health. What is being healthy? How do you know if someone is healthy or not? Does being healthy mean doing 10 or more push ups? Maybe running a sub 8 minute mile? How about falling within a normal weight on BMI scale? Healthy isn’t something you can measure through any numbers, but simply being free of pain. Anyone can be considered healthy if they’re free of pain. No matter how short or tall they are or how much they weight, how strong or how old they are, anyone can be healthy at any stage of life in any shape or form.

If being healthy is in relations to your physical body, being happy is in relations to your mental wellness. Being healthy is being free of pain physically, and being happy is being free of worries and sufferings mentally. Just like health isn’t about how how strong you are or how old you are, happiness isn’t about how much you have or your personal achievements. This is where lot of people make mistake because they believe happiness is something that can be “pursued”. They mistakenly believe that the happiness is just out of their reach, and if they just get into that top university, or land that dream job or marry their crush and have kids, they will be eternally happy. Unfortunately that’s not where happiness lies, and they quickly realize after getting into that university, landing that dream job and marrying and having kids with your crush, that they’re still not happy. So instead of chasing after the next best thing hoping they’ll find happiness there, it’s better to spend their energy looking deeply into what’s bothering them, what’s causing their suffering or stress, and work on getting rid of their suffering to be truly happy.