Defining A Fruitful Life

Not all successful people are fruitful, but all fruitful people are successful. Allow me to explain…

A fruitful life is a life lived beyond the expectations of society. Society’s definition of success often relies on an individual’s earned income, assets and/or education. It’s as if we view success as being attainable through only one pathway. According to dictionary.com, however, success can also be defined as the accomplishment of one’s goals– those goals can be anything that makes your precious little heart happy. If you are anything like me, riches is not really your priority and that is absolutely okay. In other words, success can be accurately described as reaching a level of contentment from the result of an action. Having a prestigious career or money is not always enough to feel satisfied or content, but if we learn to live a fruitful life (action), we will find contentment (desired outcome) in our lives.

To understand this some more, we should analyze what fruitful living means. I will use a bible verse to explain this because it is the foundation of the message I am trying to convey. Galatians 5:22-23 states that if we keep our spirits healthy, we will reap love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To make this easier, I will explain each of these individually.

• Love– Living life with love, is loving the things or people we disagree with and not only those we naturally already love. I agree it is difficult, but I am not referring to feeling the warm and fuzzy feeling for them, it’s about lending a hand even to those who seem to deserve it the least.
• Joy– Living life in joy is different from living a happy life.  Joy is being able to enjoy life and see the good in it, even in the midst of difficult trials. It is wearing a sincere smile regardless of the circumstance surrounding you. Yes, this is actually possible.
• Peace– Living life in peace is having full confidence that no matter how difficult a situation may be, a solution is on the way and you will not stress trying to figure it out. Instead, you will choose to rest in knowing the answer is near.
• Patience– Living life with patience is one of my most difficult challenges, but learning to be patient is learning to not rush into decisions or actions. Things come to pass when the time is right, not when we rush or force ourselves into them.
• Kindness– To live life with kindness, is to live a life concerned for the needs of others and not just our own. It requires to put ourselves aside and putting others before us.
• Goodness– To live life with goodness is to be good to others, practicing the “Golden Rule” often, and being ethical in all that we do.
• Faithfulness– To live in faithfulness requires a level of commitment to others and to what we do for others.
• Gentleness– To live life with gentleness means to live with a soft heart. We don’t always need to practice tough love.
• Self-control– To live with self-control is to live with emotional intelligence. It means to control our emotions before they control us.

If you have not noticed yet, most of the above characteristics have to do with how we interact with others. How can we achieve the above kind of success? I would say this: If our mind controls our behavior, and our behaviors lead the actions that take us to our desired outcome, then we must focus on our mind.We must guard our mind and our heart, that is where having self-control or emotional intelligence becomes crucial. When we practice love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, we begin to radiate this positive energy that attracts the right people into our life– the kind that will lead us to open doors of opportunities.

I cannot say I have reached this type of success to its totality, but I can say I am in pursuit of it. A materialistic life seems so temporary and not satisfying enough. I desire to live a meaningful life. We should all continue to better ourselves every day without compromising the things that give significance to our lives.