Chasing Platitudes

Meaning, contentment, happiness: these ephemeral constructs beguile and elude us. At once sorted and ordered, the next harried and distressed, rarely do our hectic lives allow more than a moment's rest from the stressors and pressures of the world. While at first blush it may seem that fulfillment is subject to the individual, years of clinical medicine, marriage, fatherhood, and military leadership have taught me that happiness is found through the equilibrium of eight common principles: Faith, Family, Friends, Work, Play, Health, Economy, and Faults. Tending these principles through life's circumstances is paramount to our wellness.