There is a strange pressure that people face during the holiday season that is rarely talked about. It’s the pressure to be happy. With all of the parties and family gatherings, we all want to show up as a happy person. We want to fully be present with people and truly share love and happiness with others.
But what if we aren’t happy? What if our smile is fake? Nobody wants that. Let’s be honest, just because a holiday is great, it doesn’t mean our life is great. The holidays bring us face to face with the reality of our life.
The pressure to be happy
The holidays shine a spotlight on the gap between the life we have and the life we wish we had. We see the movies of great love. We see commercials of a dad buying their daughter a new car. We watch people gathering in New York to shop at the best of stores. In the meantime, we are sitting on the couch eating Doritos while wearing the same pajama pants that we have worn for 5 years.
The holidays pressure us to meet expectations. Traditions stack up over the years and end up giving us a long list of things to do. Family expectations also ramp up. We feel the pressure to be happy with family, and to make people around us feel happy.
The holidays put financial pressure on us. It is expected that we all start buying. Find the newest lights for the house, buy a new tree, get new stockings to hang. Every get together involves bringing a gift to exchange and our families fill out a Christmas wish list. We drive down busy streets and it seems that everyone is happily rushing to the store to buy a cart full of Christmas.
The holidays can cause us to compare our lives to others. Comparison is a silent but heavy burden. It’s a toxic fume. We sit on the couch scrolling on our phones. We see endless pictures of people displaying the fun they are having at a holiday party, but our only plan for the evening is to buy some dip to go with our crackers.
The holidays pressure us to fix relationships. We want the family gatherings to go well, so our minds start to think about how to get things smoothed over within the family. We know the tension that exists between family members and we want to make things better before we all stand together for the family photo.
In short, the holidays put pressure on us to present to the world that our life is going really well. But we all want the real thing. We want to live with actual happiness, fulfillment, love, and meaning. How do we get there?
Maybe we don’t have to keep living this kind of disconnected life where we are trying to portray something outwardly that we are not experiencing inwardly. What if we can live a life that actually has happiness?
Do we have a choice in the matter? Are we just stuck in this reality forever? Do we have no choice but to spike the eggnog in order to numb that pain?
Here is what I think has happened to most of us.
- The pressures of life have formed us. Before we ever knew who we were, we were dropped off into a wilderness without a compass.
- The people around us have confused us. Many people have felt handcuffed in life by relationships with others.
- The pleasures of life have consumed us. Eating, drinking, shopping, watching, scrolling, etc. Pleasures are ok. But the empty life becomes consumed by the need to numb.
As we look around at our life we might wonder, “Did I ever know who I was? Did I ever know the point of my existence? Did I ever even know where I was going? What is the point of all of this?”
That last question brings us closer to answering a question we must answer. What is the point?
What if all of this internal wrestling in our hearts and minds is calling us to change. Maybe your heart isn’t saying “My life sucks!” Maybe your heart is saying, “I want to live for more.” Similar to how hunger reminds us of our need to eat, this internal struggle about life is trying to remind us of something. Like a beautiful meal that satisfies the stomach, what if there was a beautiful life to satisfy our hearts?
This is the moment where you may want to stop reading. Not because you don’t want a solution, but because you may have given up on believing that a solution exists for you. We all know how to satisfy the hunger in our hearts, but we struggle to know how to satisfy the longings of the heart. This sets us up for a malnourished life where our heart is literally on life support every day.
Here is the pathway to the happy life
This solution is simple. Similar to a sandwich that satisfies the stomach, a lack of purpose is the most common ailment of the human heart. But it takes longer to build a purposeful life that brings the happiness we long for.
It begins with answering this question: What is my purpose?
Our hearts are looking for purpose more than you or I even realize. We want things to matter. We want our lives to count. Living a fulfilling life without knowing your purpose is like trying to find a needle in a haystack when you don’t even know what a needle looks like.
On the other hand, when you know your purpose, you have a passionate pursuit inside of you that empowers you to face and overcome pressures outside of you. When you know your purpose you build a meaningful life in all of your experiences and relationships.
Knowing your purpose may seem like a small thing. It’s like a little hinge on a big door. It allows that big door to swing open to the life you were really meant to experience.
So, what is the first step?
Stop racing through life by chance. Listen to your heart that is crying out for a fulfilling life. Make this holiday season a new beginning in your life. Refuse to continue a life that leaves your heart depleted.
This answer I am offering is simple, but it’s not quick. I’d like to invite you into a journey of transformation we call The Purpose Mastermind. My wife and I walk people through 8 conversations about how to know our purpose and then how to live it out boldly. Below you will see a link to sign up for a phone conversation with us. We won’t pressure you to work with us. But we would love to hear you share your heart.