Finding meaning in life – how to be more joyful
In this edition of Live It, Lead IT, I’m going to be discussing the million dollar question ‘Why are we here?’. But not to worry – there won’t be any religious overtones to the show! I’ll simply be helping you focus on what it means to ‘live it’, in the here and now. Understanding this will help you become not just a better leader, but better all-around.

So, life, what’s it all about?
Well first and foremost let’s start from the basic premise that we only live one life on this planet. If we can agree on this, I would make the bold statement that life is about having fun. Simple as it sounds, living a life full of joy is sadly not as common practice as it ought to be. However, it is an achievable goal. By first and foremost accepting that life is finite, you can take the first and most important step toward living a life of happiness.
Now you may be thinking that life is about more than having fun – that such a statement appears to trivialise why we are here. Consider all those people you know who have committed their life to serving others – the key driver behind their altruism is just the same as the rest of us. They essentially want to feel good about themselves. Whichever way you look at it, or however you want to phrase it, ultimately we want to live a life that makes us feel good. If we can agree on this statement, then we can look to how we can achieve our life’s meaning, with a few fundamental changes.
Managing our moods
Sadly, despite the very privileged lives the vast majority of us in the West lead, joy appears to be in thin supply. And why? Because individuals create their own living hell when, every day, they choose to react to events negatively. Take for instance road rage. You get angry at someone speeding, or a traffic light that seems to take forever to change, or any other occurrence that might happen on the roads that makes you see red.
An angry person is not only an unattractive person, but they are also unable to be an effective leader, since they won’t have their wits about them, preventing them from engaging with those around them in a positive way. With greater introspection we can acknowledge how the outside world is impacting our inner feelings, enabling us to assess our moods and choose how to react to the events that occur from day to day.
Instead of trying to understand why events are impacting us in a particular way, by recognising that there are in fact no connections between the outside world and our inner feelings that we don’t ourselves allow, we can begin to learn how to become a master of ones of own emotions.
Fostering a good and positive mood will enable you to be a better leader. Listen on for the full overview. Enjoy!
Your,
Olaf Kapinski