What’s your Happiest Childhood Memory?
Finding Purpose.
They say that a simple formula for a good life is a combination of independence and purpose.
Independence means waking up every morning and saying, "I can do whatever I want today". The freedom to choose how to spend time - whether on family, friends, religion, work, hobbies, solitude, whatever it might be.
Money brings you independence. More money is the ultimate measure of smart effort. You can become pretty good at making money. The more money you get, the closer you feel you’re narrowing to your goals. But the goals you want to achieve might be impossible if the goalpost doesn’t stop moving.
We often don’t know when to stop chasing money for independence.
It’s easy to work our lives out to think of the big trip that awaits for you if you work hard enough, or the efforts you are making for your kids future or family’s stability, or the time with loved ones, or exercising, or a hobby. Or pretty much a non-negotiable thing: a health issue that you need to solve, a time of care for someone else, the rent, or your immigrant condition in a country.
Yet there's many people who make a million dollars per year and they have no independence whatsoever. They might like their jobs but they are completely tied to it. They have no way out of it. Their goal post keeps moving.
They might say I’m making $10 million dollars a year and I am not happy. The irony is because by trying to make more money, they’re pushing themselves away from independence.
Like an open air jail with two heavy chains in your feet while you work preventing you from becoming the family member, the friend, the mindful, the helper, the crafter.
One of the ways to catch this vice against independence in a work that you don’t love is when you think about a money number and then you stop once you achieve it.
My identity scrambles if I say that I will be a writer until I make enough money to stop writing. Or I will be a successful lawyer, editor, engineer, celebrity, politician, manager, professor, policeman, until I get enough money to never think about it again. It’s dangerous.
It’s not independence but reckless dependency on money and far from a good life.
I really hope that you don't become joyful to get free from everything immediately. Because it means that you’re sad with what is everything right now. Opening your eyes in the morning and dreading the day ahead of you is a flag that needs immediate attention and change.
However, change is tricky. You might change jobs, move cities, travel the world in the search for happiness and you might get it for a while before you feel empty and full of problems again. That’s not a good life.
“The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another one” author Mark Manson famously wrote. “When a person has no problems, the mind automatically finds a way to invent some.” He continued, “I think what most people—especially educated, pampered middle-class white people—consider ‘life problems’ are really just side effects of not having anything more important to worry about.”
That's the catch—finding the important things worth solving. Happiness comes from solving problems. The secret sauce is in solving the right ones for you.
But what are the right problems for you? What do you want independence for? What’s your intention here?
A good answer starts by saying that we all want independence to pursue the things we really like. We all have something that in the deepest levels we secretly enjoy and that we remember doing most of the time. That’s why a good life is also a purposeful life.
Yet, what we want changes all the time. It’s like asking a six year old child what he wants to be in the future, an astronaut or a human rights savior.
However, we can get a pretty good sense of what we like when we look back later in life and see what we already know makes us joyful.
Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why, offers a powerful approach: instead of stating your purpose by looking to the future, we can discover it by examining our past. In the art of looking for patterns in moments of deep satisfaction and joy. The key isn't what happened in these moments, but why they felt so meaningful to us.
He points out that your purpose has to be altruistic - it is not about ending your purpose one day by getting that expensive [insert material yatch, car, house, billion] as an end, but rather, about helping others to become better in their paths along the way.
An inspiring purpose starts with action, remains simple and clear, and transcends material goals. It's about service to others, stands the test of time, and resonates deeply with who we are. Most importantly, it feels right and inspires not just ourselves, but others.
Simon mentions that there are three questions that can help you uncover your purpose. They are a combination of moments that have transformed you in the past, a person who has influenced you the most in your life, and a singular moving one for me is: what’s your happiest childhood memory?
Seeing what made us happy as children is also likely seeing what makes us happier every day.
Curious of my own why, I’ve been spending my time lately asking this question to my friends, parents, and brothers. I’ve heard beautiful answers and they also have given me a beautiful context of the human in front of me.
It’s a tricky question because when I ask it I see people’s eyes shining or tearing in unexpected ways. Many of us seem to have these moments ingrained in a safe box with three chain locks and four passwords. Most of us don’t really think about it but they make us change our faces almost immediately.
The reason?
Because we are mostly focused on the evils of independence.
I hear stories of weekly family dinners, filled with the sound of an uncle's guitar. Of surprise visits from far-away siblings that shook a ten-year-old's world. Of falling asleep in a father's arms while watching TV. Of an uncle's gift of new shoes, carefully placed on small feet. Of witnessing a sibling's birth.
My own story taught me this lesson on a high school football field.
Every year we used to have a month-long inter-class games at high school, with different disciplines like football, volleyball, kickingball or running. You were meant to perform well for the sake of the promo’s reputation.
I was bad at them all. I was the nerdiest guy in my grade - slow, inflexible, overweight and more interested in fiction or Harry Potter magic tricks, and daydreaming about first kisses than sports. I couldn't kick a ball straight or even jump a fence, and the bullying reminded me of it every time. I was so influenced by my frustration that my identity became fixed on trying to figure out football before the inter-class games every year.
I started to practice obsessively for the inter-classes through my childhood and adolescence years.
Still, I ended up warming the bench for my entire high school years. Until one day at sixteen I was randomly selected in the starting five and was able to score one single goal, kicking the ball hard from half of the field. We lost that game, but that was my childhood happiest memory.
Are you kidding me? The roaring feeling of scoring and seeing my friends and strangers surrounding me with astonishing expressions. The nerd, the anti-sport human that after so much practicing and counseling was able to score that one time? Yes. That for me meant success. It meant perseverance and achievement. It showed that I could figure things out, and that the things that now make me happier are helping others doing the same.
When I look back, I realize my goalpost can stop moving now. That moment on the football field wasn't just about scoring a goal—it was about persistence, defying expectations, and the joy of achievement against odds. As Khaled Hosseini wrote, “what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.” Today I find significant independence by the pleasure of sharing this and hopefully showing a way to achieve something greater for you. Perhaps your own happiest childhood memory holds the key to understanding what really matters in your life, just as my moment on that football field showed me mine.
Sources
[1] Morgan Housel: Understand & Apply the Psychology of Money to Gain Greater Happiness - Episode December 2, 2024
[2] The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson
[3] Start with Why - Simon Sinek