What Is an Optimal Life?

Many people speak about their problems in life. In fact, this is one of the hottest topics of conversations. It doesn’t really matter where you meet someone, all it takes is a friendly smile to start pouring out your life’s woes to them. Everyone does the same. The result is that no one really knows how happy one is. Since everyone is talking about their miseries, it does seem that no one around is leading an optimal life.

This is where the problem lies. We think that the term ‘optimal life’ should have a definition. We think that we should be able to peg down
someone’s life entirely and say, “Ah, now his is an optimal life!” But it doesn’t happen that way, does it? You might think that someone with a lot of money or someone with a beautiful wife must have an optimal life. But when you get to know them, you begin to see the great big problems that lie behind this exterior façade of theirs and you realize that their life is not all that hunky-dory as you thought it to be.

There’s a great saying I am reminded of here –

If everyone were to throw their problems in a pile, and see everyone else’s, they would grab their own right back.

It’s true. We think the neighbors are always happier than we are. We think they are leading a more optimal life than we are. But if we were really to sit down and make comparisons, quite likely, we would find our problems to be the least.

So, where are we heading with this? The point I want to make here is that our lives are only as optimal as we want them to be. We have it
entirely in our hands how beautiful we want to make our lives. If we want to sit and brood that life is toying with us in every way possible,
it is. But if we plan to take things in our hands and not let life jerk us around, it won’t.

We have to plan just how much control we want to give our lives.

An optimal life is a very individualistic thing. For us, an optimal life would be one in which we are completely contented and satisfied with
whatever we have. It doesn’t matter whether we are rich or poor – if we are satisfied with what we have, it is an optimal life that we live.