What do you need to reach a state of happiness? You don’t need to achieve a goal to be happy. Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and the idea of happiness has become ambiguous through overuse. There is a more precise alternative that reflects what I believe is the actual objective for achieving goals. Bear with me. What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. Crying out of happiness is a perfect illustration of this idea.

So, for example, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference and the opposite of happiness is boredom. Excitement is the more practical synonym of happiness and it is precisely what you should strive to chase, it’s the cure all. When people suggest that you follow your passion or that you follow your bliss, I believe they are, in fact, referring to the same idea; excitement. And this brings us full circle.

The question you should be asking isn’t what do I want, it’s not what are my goals, the question you should be asking yourself all the time is “what would really excite me?”  You don’t need a lot of money to be happy. You don’t need to do anything. You can just smile, make your physiology strong and be grateful for everything you have now. Be aware. Be grateful of everything you have now in your life, your family, your friends, all the people you love and who love you. All the great opportunities you have in your life, your health. All of us have so many great things in our life. Happiness is really just a choice, an emotional choice. You choose to be happy. You can make yourself happy right now in any situation.

So we don’t need to have goals to be happy. We don’t need to achieve things and get success to be happy. But excitment, well, that’s a totally dfferent thing; if we want passion, if we want excitement, that’s where goals come in. Goals make us grow. They push us to become more, to try new things, to become bigger and better people, to live amazing lives. So we can be happy anytime, anywhere, but if we really want to be passionate, we really want to feel powerful, positive emotions and feel this incredible energy, we need to grow. We need to feel excited about our lives, not just happy, excited. That’s the reason to have goals.

So when you’re choosing your goals, don’t choose small goals. Don’t choose boring goals, boring goals are useless. Why have a goal if it’s boring? Just stay the same. The only reason to choose a goal and to try to achieve a goal is if it excites you. It will give you energy and passion and excitement, trying to get it and actually getting it. You should feel excited about both.

That is the purpose of goals. They provide energy, they provide excitement. So when you choose goals you must, you absolutely must choose exciting goals. Again, excitement is what we’re looking for. That energy, that passion, that excitement, that’s the purpose of having goals in life, so you need to evaluate every one of your goals. if you want to get free of boredom and avoid depression you should get to the end of your life and look back and say “I lived an amazing life! I’m excited about all the great things I did! I’m excited about all the people I helped! I’m excited about all the things I learned!” That’s my opinion.