I get asked all the time, which is most important; your health or your happiness. If you take a moment to think about your gut answer, it’s really tough. Before I tell you what I believe, let me first tell you a little about where I’m coming from and what I do. I’m an exercise physiologist and specialist in healthy aging. I’m continually asked why I always have a positive attitude, especially with all the craziness in my life. First, it’s not as easy as most think, being positive and happy, second I need to remind myself and be reminded that I need to be more empathetic, especially in my personal relationships to understand that others have a harder time dealing with life and it can be perceived by them that my attitude is nothing more than rah rah. When what they want is a sympathetic ear or even better they want someone who is willing to jump into the place they may be, I like to call this the big dark pit, and help them battle this problem together. People want solutions to the pain, not motivation! Over the years I have developed strategies to help people get to a point where they can focus on health and happiness and eventually success in their life. I would like to relate a wonderful, true story about an interview I did over a year ago with an 80 year old gentleman who has done 25 consecutive years of the Hawaiian Ironman; he set his best time at 80 years of age, wow! I asked him how he did it, thinking he had to be this gifted athlete. He told me he had never been an athlete prior to getting involved in triathlons over 25 years ago. His secret was that 50 years ago he decided he wanted to be a healthy older guy. So over the past 50 years he has made choices in his life that have brought him to this point of amazing success, physically and emotionally and yes he is happy. Sot then back to our original question which is most important?

HAPPINESS

Let’s take a closer look at happiness. Being happy is a choice, believe it or not. Do you agree with the statement that happiness is a result of having a life full of purpose? If you’re like me you have been disappointed many times expecting that something outside of you was going to make you happy. I had to learn to believe that all I needed was inside of me. You have to truly have faith in what you spiritually believe that you were created with everything you need to be happy. Once this happens you can start to live your life by design. Yes you can design a life of happiness. You may be asking, okay this sounds nice but I need a plan. Good question. This starts with you making a decision. You have to decide on your purpose, your “WHY”. This is not as easy as choosing which outfit you want to wear, but once you discover it you’ll know because it will feel right and be easy. You’ll feel childlike when doing it. I have done a lot of work with people over the age of 90. A couple huge things that I have learned from them are, don’t take life too serious and find something you love to do. They usually have a reason, a why, to put their shoes on each day. They have a purpose. You need a purpose, at any age. If you want to live into and beyond your 90’s find a purpose. They learned to that choosing happiness was at first a lot of work. But after many trials they learned that life offered much more to them if they were happy, even if they didn’t feel happiness. This group learned to make better choices, and developed strategies to help them achieve happiness. Sounds a lot like our Ironman doesn’t it? Although many in this age group didn’t make as obvious a decision as our Ironman, they learned to be happy until over time, it became part of who they were. They learned to respond to life rather than react. This is how you live by design.

Another wonderful strategy for achieving happiness is deciding what you truly want, not what someone else wants. This, many times is embarrassing to state because it sounds selfish. But if it is inside you, if you leave it there, will you ever truly achieve happiness. Learn not to settle. Way too many people settle for a variety of reasons. You must choose not to settle. Remember there is no better feeling than to wake up each morning with a purpose. The energy you will experience will be off the charts! Also tell others whom you trust about your desire or dream, this will help you to get through the stuff that you don’t want to do, but will help you to eventually get to what you want. Being happy is a lot of work. If you make the tough choices early, the payoff is huge down the road. If not, sometimes the cost is too much for many to pay, which leads to misery later. In summary, choose to design your happiness. Find your purpose. Be public with it, tell others close to you. Don’t worry you’ll know it’s your purpose because just thinking about it makes you smile and pursing it is easy!

YOUR HEALTH

By now you’re either clearer about happiness or your thoroughly confused. Let’s assume you have a better grasp of happiness, are you ready to answer the question about what’s more important, happiness or health? Before you answer we should take a look at your health. I like to define health or wellness as the absence of anything that prevents our mind, body and spirit from performing at an optimal level. Do you have the energy, strength, endurance and motivation to do what you want? If not, why? You may be thinking if I could do all those things of course I would be happy. So your answer might be that health is more important. But if you made better choices and developed a purpose or “why” could that inspire you to do the things that would create optimal health? I have observed individuals on both sides of this; personally I have been on both sides of this. If I were healthy with everything going just right in my life, of course I was happy! But if something got out of alignment things would start to crumble. I have also observed folks who remain happy when everything is falling apart! How could they do that? Over time the answer became obvious to me, they chose to be happy. Let me add one more thing to the mix. If you’re happy and you have a purpose will you be more inspired to do the things that make you healthy? If you have no purpose and are constantly reacting to life, will you be inspired to do things that will make you healthy? Once I looked at it in those terms the answer was clear. I needed to be happy first. And I was in control of being happy. I could learn to design happiness into my life. I would suggest that you should look at your own life and answer the question for yourself. Just remember it’s your choice! Create an Awesome Life!

Arnie Fonseca, Jr is an exercise specialist and a wellness nut, a competitive distance athlete and fitness addict. His passion is to help all individuals achieve their highest potential and to love living.