In the pursue of happiness, there is an understanding that delayed gratification brings you the most reward. Personally, this understanding opened my eyes to how I see the world at large with growing into my person outside my family livelihood. I came upon this concept when I was watching a show called The Money Guy. The hosts of the Money Guy show discussed the relationship between money, a lifestyle with a focus on delayed gratification and its association with the happiness of an individual. You can watch the video here.
Application
Personally, I have learned with life that everything has normalized by a six month period of change. The relationship I have with Father Time (Saturn) showcased this growth to me where I was spending day in and day out with reaching my goals. I briefly talked about building your relationship with Father Time (Saturn) in this previous blog post here. Once you try something, you as the individual make the decision to pursue consistency with that action. After six months aka 180 days, your mind, spirit and personhood has normalized that consistency. This is the background into delayed gratification and habit building.
For example, I moved to New York last September. It was a different experience living in a new state with a new environment all around me. By the end of my six months, I got used to being in a different state with new pathways of traveling, new activities, new friends, new partners in my Venusian pursues and much more. Six months seems like a short time but, it highlights that there is much more to explore. The delayed gratification with happiness came from understanding my new environment first and building new inputs into the factors of happiness.
Happiness Factors
What are the factors of happiness? In a study by Professor Richard Layard called Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, the factors of happiness are seven factors that include wealth, family relationships, career, friends, health, freedom and personal values. Unknowingly to me, I filled these factors of happiness in my first six months in New York. First, I moved to New York to pursue career and wealth pursues. Next, I use family relationships and friend relationships that I had to meet people in the New York area. Then, I advanced my health factor by making an effort to build my health team, exercise and find a health community (pilates). Finally, the last two factors of freedom and personal values that challenged me to connect with others using social clubs, volunteering and understanding what my personal motto was towards life itself. I can successfully I have accomplished these factors, and one native New Yorker congratulated me for reaching my one year anniversary in New York. It seems that people do not last in this place.
In the seven factors of happiness, I would include for others the factor of beauty. Not beauty in the sense of product and consumerism but the beauty of understanding the glory of time, life itself and self preservation. Beauty to me comes from a strategic standpoint. More less, I am a woman in Westernized society that admires and places it on a pedestal for women like me to gain capital. To me, beauty is linked to happiness and the delayed gratification of lifestyle changes. How can you enjoy life if you do not enjoy the beauty of it?
If you take anything away from this article, I want you to remain hopeful and understanding what the lifestyle of delayed gratification brings to your daily joy of life. Take the time to sit down to talk to yourself and understand where your factors of happiness are coming from with the eight factors of happiness.
