Many of you live lives of despair. Some of you simply feel a sense of emptiness, that something in life is lacking. You feel unfulfilled and would like to add that spark of life back to living. Maybe, you’ve never had it but would like it. You ache for the day you can lift your head from the emotional fog and see what life could be like in the sun.

Following, is one of three ways to add that spark, to jump start your happiness and improve your life with an added measure of joy. (Return tomorrow to discover other ways to add meaning and joy to life).

Developing a sense that life has purpose, that it is endowed with meaning, that life has direction and significance adds volumes to personal happiness.

So, how do you develop the sort of purpose and meaning that adds joy to life?

Happy People Develop a Life of Meaning by doing Meaningful Things

No one has ever become happier, attaining a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, by watching more hours of TV, or viewing elicit material online, or going to more movies. Meaning, as opposed to distractions, is created by doing things that matter, things that add depth and purpose to life. So …

Volunteer. Serve in your church. Make raising good kids your life mission. Visit shut-ins. Become a Scout leader. Adopt a child. Save the seals. Feed the hungry. Visit the lonely. Clothe the naked. Lift the burdens of another. Make the world a little bit better. And do it regularly!

Such things elevate life and elevate living. What you do begins to matter. Who you are, then, increasingly matters too, and matters to more people. Life itself becomes meaningful as you begin to feel the growing sense that you make a difference, that you’re leaving life better than it was when you found it, adding immeasurably to your sense of mission and importance … and happiness.

Rule #1: Do you want to be happy? Make someone else happy!

By focusing on the needs of others as you pursue a worthy cause, you make your own dissatisfactions, sorrows and suffering shrink, in a way, as you put them in the proverbial backseat of your attention.

The pain you feel at the trials you endure rises in proportion to the time you spend thinking about them. They diminish in equal proportion to the time you spend thinking of others.

Likewise, a life without significant pain, but one that has stalled, that seems to be on pause, that is simply unfulfilling can also be effectively jump-started by choosing just one activity, one cause, one act of purpose and significance and begin incorporating it into your life.

Afterthoughts

By doing more of those things that have inherent value, your sense of purpose and meaning will expand. A light will go on in the shadows of an unsatisfied life. And the warm glow of happiness will begin to illuminate your soul, satisfying your hunger for something of significance, filling your insides with a greater degree of happiness.