Quotes About Fulfillment

There's a great satisfaction in knowing that we've made good use of our days, that we've lived up to our expectations of ourselves.

Research—and my own experience—suggests that the less we indulge in something, the less we want it. When we believe that a craving will remain unsatisfied, it may diminish; cravings are more provoked by possibility than by denial.

While some more passive forms of leisure, such as watching TV or surfing the Internet, are fun in the short term, over time, they don't offer nearly the same happiness as more challenging activities.

I knew I wouldn't discover happiness in a faraway place or in unusual circumstances; it was right here, right now— as in the haunting play The Blue Bird, where two children spend a year searching the world for the Blue Bird of Happiness, only to find it waiting for them when they finally return home.

Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves is destructive." And whatever liberates our spirit while giving us mastery over ourselves is constructive.

Outer order isn't a matter of having less or having more; it's a matter of wanting what we have.

I always had the uncomfortable feeling that if I wasn't sitting in front of a computer typing, I was wasting my time--but I pushed myself to take a wider view of what was productive. Time spend with my family and friends was never wasted.

We are happy when we are growing.

arriving rarely makes you as happy as you anticipate. p 84

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. —Journal of Thomas Merton

A sense of growth is so important to happiness that it's often preferable to be progressing to the summit rather than to be at the summit.

It's easy to make the mistake of thinking that if you have something you love or there's something you want, you'll be happier with more.

By mindfully deciding how to act in line with my values instead of mindlessly applying my rules, I was better able to make the decisions that supported my happiness.

The happiest and most successful people are those who have figured out ways to exploit their Tendency to their benefit and, just as important, found ways to counterbalance its limitations.

A sense of growth is so important to happiness that it's often preferable to be progressing to the summit rather than to be at the summit. Neither a scientist nor a philosopher but a novelist, Lisa Grunwald, came up with the most brilliant summation of this happiness principle: "Best is good, better is best.

Having less often leads us to use our things more often and with more enjoyment, because we're not fighting our way through a welter of unwanted stuff.

You're not happy unless you think you're happy.

In many ways, the happiness of having children falls into the kind of happiness that could be called fog happiness. Fog is elusive. Fog surrounds you and transforms the atmosphere, but when you try to examine it, it vanishes. Fog happiness is the kind of happiness you get from activities that, closely examined, don't really seem to bring much happiness at all—yet somehow they do.

The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer.

I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change.

A happy home wasn't a place that I could furnish, but an attitude of mind I must develop.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, "New England Reformers

A feeling of control is a very important aspect of happiness. People who feel in control of their lives, which is powerfully bolstered by feeling in control of time, are more likely to feel happy.

To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.