To be truly Happy...

The first chapter of my philosophy course asks a very good question on the first page of the first chapter. It reads something like; What would it take for you to be truly happy and fulfilled, to make you feel that you have everything you want, and you'll be happy regardless of what ever trouble you may have to navigate? I thought I would take some time to discuss that here.

To be truly happy. Some of the guys out here that I have asked mention not working as a facet of their ideal happy state. I'm not so sure I would want that. I like being productive. Sure, I would change what I'm doing. I think I would like to teach self-defense and make knives/other metalwork, maybe run a restaurant and probably write. Sure all of those things are things that I enjoy, but why not do the things you enjoy as a form of profession. My grandfather used to say "Make your vacation your vocation, and you'll never be unhappy." Pretty strong words.

My ideal situation would be me and my family living in a beautiful, fairly spacious, home on between 25 and 100 acres. Our home and living conditions would be fairly renewable and environmentally friendly. Most power from sun and wind, water from a well, most produce from our garden, and some of our other food from hunting/fishing. We would live a simple craftsman's life. I would do the things listed above for money and my wife might take up a career of her choosing. Something that made her happy and filled some of her time, photography or helping manage the restaurant. We, as a family, would engage in physical hobbies like hiking or kayaking to stay fit.

I think the most important factor to my being happy is having my family be taken care of. The second would be keeping active and engaged, both mentally and physically. The last thing would the actual circumstances of my living conditions. Sure I would like a 3000+ sq ft home built of natural rock and cedar, with all the amenities, and running almost entirely on solar and wind power. I would love to do only those things I enjoy and get paid to do them. But my family comes first and always. We WILL eat healthy. We WILL be fit. My children WILL be well educated, worldly, and content. My wife WILL be happy, whatever that may take. Those are the only things that I would have to fail at to feel as if I have done something wrong with my life.

I guess, to summarize, my happiness stems from the happiness of my family first, then to my feeling of accomplishment in what I do, and followed by the physical things in life. Now I haven't really covered those, now have I? Ok, a quick list then. The following is a list of the "things" that I want that would make me "Happier":

A large, fairly green home on a decent sized piece of land.
A Truck
A Motorcycle
An ATV (to get around my land)
A fully stocked workshop
A knife collection
A gun collection
A personal library (fiction and non-fiction)
All the martial arts gear needed to effectively train and teach.

I guess that wraps this up. Comments are welcome as usual!