The Best Life

What Is The Best Life According To You? 

"Health is the greatest possession, contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy."

—Lao Tzu

Have you ever asked this question to yourself? What is Your idea of the best life? 

Today I am going to share my idea of the best life—for me at least. Everybody is living a different life, so everybody’s ideas will naturally be different. And that’s completely okay. We just have to figure out what is the best life for us. And what steps we should take to achieve that state. On the way, many obstacles will come. We have to prepare ourselves for them. When we reach there, we will feel our every effort has been worth giving in. 

My Idea of The Best Life

In life, there are three aspects that make our life in this world complete. Can you guess what these are? They are—Health, Wealth and Happiness.

In my view, if these three ingredients are there—that is the recipe of the best life. These three are totally interrelated. If any one aspect is missing, we will not feel completely satisfied. 

Health comes to me first. Good health is the basis of living to our fullest potential. If health is not there, we will not be able to aspire for the higher pursuits of life. Health doesn’t just mean physical fitness or a strong body. Our mental health determines the quality of our lives. Health is the wholeness of life. I’ve delved into this topic in one of my earlier posts, which is titled—Mental Health: Understanding It and Taking Charge of It. You can dive into it if you wish to understand what health actually is. 

The next essential ingredient to live a truly fulfilling life, I think, is wealth. Now, wealth is not just money, property, riches—that’s the material aspect of it. It is needed to live a worry-free and secure life. It gives us comforts and conveniences. But is that what wealth is all about? I don’t think so. 

I think real wealth is people’s love and affection. Not prestige or name or fame. If as a human being, you are adored by people, and at the end of the day, there is contentment in your heart, you are wealthy in the truest sense! What do you think? 

And last but not the least, but actually the MOST IMPORTANT ingredient is of course HAPPINESS! Without happiness what is the point of everything? Good health and a hefty wealth may be there, but if we are not happy in our hearts, our lives are not beautiful. Only a happy soul can live a beautiful life. 

But how does happiness come?— This is a great question in itself. Books have been written on it, thousands of YouTube videos have been made, so much have been said and advised, but this is one thing which we are always in pursuit of, never in possession of! So it seems. Why do we do all the things that we do? Why even try to be healthy or wealthy? So that ultimately we can be happy! Happiness is the summum bonum of our lives. Without it, nothing really matters. And if it is there, we don’t need anything else! 

This is the interesting thing about happiness—it is not dependent on anything. Happiness is a state of mind. The other two aspects—health and wealth—are tangible gains, but happiness is intangible. No matter how healthy or wealthy we are, yet we can be miserable. On the other hand, if someone is not so healthy and even poor, he or she can still be happy! Yes, happiness surpasses these two. To be happy we need something else…

What is that? 

We have to figure that out for ourselves. I will not try to answer it, nor should I. Everyone’s path is different. We have to come to it through our own ways. There’s no one perspective and no one answer. But I am sharing my perspective here, so that you, my dear readers, may at least know the direction to it. 

When we are truly content within, we are happy!

Last Words

I would like to make an important distinction here—between life and living. Health, wealth and happiness make our living in this world complete, but as a life, as a being, these aspects don’t make us complete. Our worldly life, i.e, our living, becomes complete when we have these three, but from the perspective of Life itself, these things alone cannot fulfil us. My realisation is:

If our hearts are full of love and compassion, if our minds are clear and free of all afflictions, if we have tasted the ecstasy of our divinity within us, are we truly fulfilled! 

May Shri Hari blesses us all 🙏

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Thank You for reading. 

Image Credit: Melissa Askew on Unsplash.