[awein999]

A happy life is one where we listen to our inner self and recognize our individualized needs AND apply these findings to our lives. You know you are successful when you find you are excited to do things in general and you are able to provide for yourself confidentally.

Goals:
-Do what I want to do for the majority of my time.
-Satisfy school work.
-Love myself.
-Meet people.
-Make the world a better place everyday.
-Help other people.
-Personal impossible badge quest on kongregate.

In Highschool (I'm now a freshman in college) I wanted to find happiness by becoming social with people in my school but I found it impossible for me. I couldn't pass that goal and it was unbearable to face and it seemed like no one could or would help me. I had to turn myself to something else. A distraction. I discovered poker and found happiness unexpectedly with that for 2 and a half years in the darkest time in my life. Poker clicked for me because I am very good at it, it's all about reading people which I love to do, it helps me meet people, my self doubt would completely leave me while playing the game. Last summer I made a average summer job's worth of money playing poker in Canada with friends after I turned 18 (unfortunately out of the 6 of us we were down plenty because 4 out of 6 of us were not very good. Almost everyone loses money playing poker in casinos. You really have to know what you are doing). But since college started I've pretty much stopped playing poker because I haven't needed it anymore. It also taught me to think for myself because my parents were all anti poker and I had to pretty much play in secret. The fact that they were wrong about it being a luck game made me come to the realization that my parents are human and that I need to think for myself to get to where I want in life. Poker made me a better, more well rounded, and satisfied person. It was unexpected, but I just went with it. And if I ever need it again, it will always be right there.

When I am very fortunate (which has been pretty much all of my life up to now) I think that maybe sometime in the future, I won't be as fortunate. And I have to prepare myself mentally for times like those. That's how the "just do the school work" mindset clicked in a couple months ago. I just compare doing the work to getting a badge by completing it (kongregate) and it's almost exciting rather than unbearable.

A little over a month ago I lost my back pack with my DS and all the games inside. My 128 Gig i-pod and a couple other things of smaller value which added up to about 700 dollars worth of stuff. I just left it somewhere carelessly and I searched for it for a week and couldn't find it. So I assumed it was stolen because I live in a college where most people are just getting by financially. 4 weeks later I get a notification online that my backpack is in the front desk of the library. I run to the library and ask if they have it and sure enough the student worker at the desk finds it in the back and just hands it to me without checking my ID or anything. I look inside and EVERYTHING is still there after 4 weeks. That is UNBELIEVABLY fortunate. Anyone could have taken it at anytime. I've learned from this fortunate experience to keep better track of my stuff. Which I have been doing since.

A happy life is (more simply put) one filled with individualized self improvement.