Achieving Success and Happiness

Last January my wife gave birth to a baby girl and we are absolutely delighted to have a daughter. However, after being grateful that she’s healthy, we started thinking about what we want for her future. After careful thought and long discussions, we decided that we simply want her to be happy.

It seems simple, but how do we help her to become a happy and successful person? That’s a really difficult question to answer. Or is it?

Aside from the joy that I’ve gotten from having a wonderful family and friends, the only profound joy that I’ve experienced has come from hard work. It doesn’t matter what I’m working on; if I try my best and sacrifice, irrespective of the result, I feel good about myself after I’ve completed my task.

This has always been true in karate, it was true in college and law school, and has been true in my professional career. In fact, whenever I have a difficult task or chore to perform, I make a game out of it. If I honestly try hard to do a good job, then irrespective of what other people might think or say, I feel good at the end of the process. It’s that simple!

For example, if you want to become great at karate, then you should make an honest attempt to practice hard in class and at home. Make a list of the things that you want to improve and a time limit for improving them. Then, if at the end of the time period you have not accomplished your goal, you didn’t work hard enough. No excuses.

But, how do you know if you’re working hard enough? In karate, if you finish class and your uniform is dry, then you know that you haven’t worked hard enough because you have not sweat. In karate you’ve got to sweat to make progress. So, you can’t fool yourself.

Studying and school work are the same. If it’s Sunday night and you know that you’ve got a quiz on Wednesday, you decide how many times you need to review the quiz material in order to score well. Then, if you haven’t completed your review by Tuesday night before you go to sleep, you haven’t worked hard enough. Here again, you can’t fool yourself.

So, don’t waste your time searching for some “secret” to success and happiness because there isn’t really a secret. Just sweat to get what you want and most of the time you will succeed. And, if by some chance you don’t succeed, then you can still feel good about yourself because you will have made an honest effort and you can always try again.

OSU!�