A story about balloons

The Health Growth Letters is a weekly publication of tips, frameworks, and lessons to help you build a more balanced life based on faith, health, and wellness. If you’ve been forwarded this email you can subscribe here.

What’s on the agenda:

• Verse: Packaging scripture like zip folders

• Lesson: How to find happiness & success

A verse I’m thinking about

Packaging scripture like zip folders

In a world of air drop and cloud storage, zip folders are somewhat a thing of the past.

But zip folders served a big purpose for a long time. Zip folders took a bunch of files and condensed them into a compressed folder which made it easier to ship, share, and view across devices.

Zip folders were our way of compressing information.

Likewise, mottos, parables, & bible verses can serve as “zip files” to help us quickly unpack a larger portion of information and center us on core takeaways, beliefs, and actions.

One of my most core, and basic practices, is to have a guiding life verse.

Over the past two years, that has been Hebrews 11: 8-9

This section of scripture embodies the heart and belief of our move to Florida. We moved from a home we owned near people we loved, to a rental property, near family. We did this because we believed that Florida is the place God has for us.

I share this for two reasons:

1. I want to encourage you to hide scripture in your heart. I believe one of the core ways God speaks to us is by bringing His word (scripture) to the forefront of our minds. That’s only possible when we know it

2. I want to encourage you to create “zip folders” for your life. Mottos, phrases, scripture, and stories you can quickly refer to that, when unpacked, contain a lot of truth and beliefs that ground and center you when life feels unsettled.

A lesson I’ve learned:
How to find happiness & success

Happiness and success often feel like a mirage you see driving down the highway.

You see a distant shine on the road on a hot, dry day. It seems real. It appears that if you keep driving, you’ll soon cross over a wet patch of the road, but in actuality you never seem to get closer to the damp pavement, it just stays on the horizon.

We believe it’s coming, until we know it never will.

The modern approach to finding happiness

I feel like the modern approach to happiness is success-driven. It translates to “when I achieve my goals, I’m going to be happy”.

It’s like the mirage of water on the road.

We look ahead and set our goals and say “I’ll be happy when we get there”. We create finish lines and objectives for us to chase - things like new jobs, relationship goals, having kids, or a new home, but for some reason when we reach those milestones happiness and success is still somewhere in the distance.

And like with the mirage, we believe it’s coming, until we realize we won’t find what we’re looking for ahead, and we give up looking.

How to actually find happiness: a story about balloons

I saw a story earlier this week I couldn’t not share. It’s a story about balloons.

There was a school experiment where a teacher gave every student a balloon and asked them to write their names on it. She then took all the balloons and filled the hallways with them. Then, she gave the students five minutes to find the balloon with their own name on it.

Despite their efforts, no one found their balloon.

Then, the teacher gave them new instructions: this time, each student was to pick up the first balloon they saw and hand it to the person whose name was on it.

Within five minutes, every student had their balloon.

The message was clear—happiness is not something we find by frantically searching for it ourselves; it is something we receive when we help others find theirs.

This simple yet profound lesson offers a new perspective on happiness.

Instead of solely focusing on ourselves, what if we turned our attention outward? What if, instead of asking, "How can I become happy and successful?" we asked, "How can I help others find happiness and become successful?"

Takeaway:

Success & happiness aren’t the result of self-optimization, “going dark” or living in isolation - they are byproducts of giving and supporting those around us.

Making the shift from “how can I” to “how can I help others” is a cornerstone of a deeper and more fulfilling sense of joy, and consequently success.

The more we help others succeed and find happiness, the more likely we are to find, or be shown a unique way to find our own.