We all share one ultimate goal in life: Understand this and your life will flow

The next time you complain about someone or get upset with the way they are, do yourself a favor; stop and think about what I’m sharing here, instead.

Here’s a way of thinking that you can adopt to help you see things in a healthier light. And when you see things in a healthier light, your life will flow in a positive direction.

So here goes.

On the surface, we’re all quite different from one another. For the most part, we may have different goals and different ways of achieving them. We go through different relationships in hopes to find the people who are most compatible with us. We try different work to find one that most suits us. We explore different things to see what most complement our interests.

Along the way we may find things that once interest us now no longer fit into our lives.

We’re constantly learning, growing and evolving. Some of us do this faster than others – eager to know more, do more, be more, have more. And there are others who are too afraid of change and rather settle on having learned enough. And then there are those who settle between these two extremes.

Whatever the case, my point is this: Though we may all seem different on the surface, we do, however, share the same ultimate desire. This desire is the driving force that causes each of us to do what we do. The desire is... to be happy.

We could argue that it is fulfillment or wealth that we’re really after; or that it is joy, understanding, love, peace, power, or even health. But it really doesn’t matter how you describe it; these are all just different forms of the “ultimate goal” – to experience “happiness.” That’s what it all boils down to.

No matter how “right” or “wrong” we get, “good” or “bad,” we’re all just trying to find some form of happiness. Think about it; think about everything you’ve done. What was the ultimate feeling you were trying to achieve?

Whether you were having an argument with a loved one, working towards a goal, lying your way out of a situation, trying to make more money, you have your reasons. But no matter how you look at those reasons, the bottom line is: you want to experience some form of happiness – be it fulfillment, accomplishment, love or importance.

On our quest to find happiness, most of us can act in ways that don’t appear to support our ultimate goal of being happy. We fight, complain, compete, yell, belittle, blame, lie, manipulate and plain old disrespect. Is this really the way to achieve happiness? I think we can agree that they don’t sound like behaviors that promote or complement happy.

If we want to be happy, shouldn’t we be leaning more toward behaviors that are in alignment with happy? Such as patience, understanding, compassion, honest communication, gratitude, kindness, non-judgement… (you get the picture).

Saying this, however, I want to be clear that it’s okay to feel negative emotions and act out negative human behaviors. It is normal. It is natural. These feelings and behaviors serve a purpose. They are the things that trigger pain in order to help us learn, grow and do better.

These negativities, if you will, are just as much a part of you as the positivities. It is in accepting both your light and dark sides that makes you complete. You can’t be complete if you only know one spectrum of yourself and not the other; you can’t truly know happiness if you’ve never felt its opposite, or know what works for you if you’ve never experienced the things that don’t.

One side of you cannot truly exist without the other. And so it is that we have all these qualities within us, light and dark, that surface depending on what’s happening around and within us. And it is from these experiences of both light and dark that we can choose what suits us best, and how we want to live.

As Dr. Deepak Chopra would say: “When we are willing to embrace both the light and the dark sides of our selves, we can begin to heal both our selves and our relationships.” (Dr. Chopra is a world-renowned authority in the field of mind-body healing, best-selling author, and a global force in the field of human empowerment.)

Though these “negative” feelings and behaviors are well in order to serve their purpose for existence, however, they can be a hindrance if we don’t learn from them and move on. They can’t serve us well when we choose to dwell in them for an extended period of time – when we let them drown us into more darkness rather than use them to realize more light.

Even though we all ultimately want to achieve happiness, the choices each of us make and the path we take to get there are not going to be the same. So we will run into people who we will have much in common with and agree with, just as we will also run into others we don't agree with.

The ones we don’t agree with, we have a tendency to judge or even condemn. Deep down we want to think we’re better. We point out why they’re wrong so we can prove how we’re right. But here’s where I want to remind you that there’s really no “need” for you to do this.

You see, when you spend your time judging or complaining, you’re truly hurting yourself because you’re putting your energy in the wrong places, therefore, your life cannot flow. Ever noticed people who spend time complaining about others are also the very same people whose life isn’t flowing smoothly?

When you understand that we’re all working toward the same ultimate goal of finding happiness – and that each of us have our own set of challenges along the way that cause us to act or react the way we do – you can have a little more compassion and patience toward others.

You will understand that they, too, in their own way – regardless of how they may appear on the surface – are having a hard time finding a balance between their light and dark sides.

You don’t have to agree with the way they are, but you now understand that life challenges affect everyone differently. Some may even choose to react in an “evil” way and some, not so much. Whatever the case, it helps not to judge anyone. After all, we all do share something powerful in common – we all just want to be happy. So what’s there to judge, really?

So don’t be too concerned with other people’s path and life challenges. Do not waste energy condemning or criticizing. Instead, move along with class and civility while focusing on your own journey. This will save you more energy to focus on emotions that will contribute to what you need to do rather than take away from it.

Should you adopt this way of thinking, you’ll experience your life to flow more in your favor. And things that begin to happen to you may even feel miraculous. But you’ll soon learn that those “miraculous” things that are happening are not so much the result of miracles as they are the result of your deliberate intention to adopt a healthier way of thinking.

In closing, I’ll leave you with more words of wisdom from world-renowned author and leader of human empowerment, Dr. Deepak Chopra:

“Intention springs from our deepest desires, and those desires are shaped by karma. You and I don’t have the same karma; therefore we don’t have exactly the same desires. We have loved different people, knelt at different graves, prayed at different altars. The specifics of desire are unique to each of us.

Yet if you follow the chain of desire, in the end we are all the same. We want to be happy. We want to be fulfilled. We want meaning and purpose in our lives. We want a sense of connection with God or spirit.

We want other people to respect us and love us. And we want to feel safe. These desires are universal. But the route each of us takes to satisfy them is uniquely our own, based on our individual experiences and memories, or karma. We’re all heading for the same destination, but we take different roads. We arrive together, having traveled our different paths.”