Selfish vs. Happiness

The pondering question of the new year is if you truly want to be happy do you have to be selfish to get there?

If you live alone and you don't have any children, family or pets to tend to then this truly doesn't apply to you. It's easier to live life just for yourself. Although I can only imagine that life, I don't even know if I would be happy being THAT alone.

Here is the issue - if you want to be happy and pursue your dreams you have to make sacrifices and most of the time it includes giving up time with family, friends, pets, life in general and it's tough to make those changes. If you have small children it's really tough, trust me I know.

Balance is a key to life, but that balance becomes more and more difficult that more you try to take on. Work, home life, family, social life, charity work, hobbies, church, kid's event's, family event's, holiday tradtions, just to name a few off the top of my head. What do you scratch off the list first?

Prioritization comes in to play and you do the best you can to divide yourself among the top items that you need to get to, but then you become tired, cranky, less effective all around and you defeat the purpose of the entire part that you are trying to become.

The only way to truly pursue your ultimate goals is to be selfish and focus on those goals and push the others aside. I find I can't be this person, thus I can't seem to get to my goals and thus I'm never truly doing what makes me happy. Is this just ridiculous? Yes, I think it is, there has to be a better way. Can I balance better? Do I need Dr. Phil to step in and help me find a way? ha ha.

I have vowed to step up to the charity part of my life in 2008, as it's something I've wanted to get back in to for years now and I'm going to do so, but what will suffer? Guess we'll see. Wish me luck. Maybe I'll learn the art of life/balance this year too.