With the arrival of the Earthbeat team for story telling in Eindhoven we had made a program for videotaping people dedicated to climate related innovations in town. We had reserved an entire day to capture the visual and invisual moments of the initiatives that we had in our network. They were from government, social entrepreneurs, lecturers, researchers, students, citizens, etc. Apart from their personal and institutional mission for a “better world” they all had one additional thing in common: their happiness!

In our old world of jobs in a financially driven world, it is often difficult to find one’s personal mission, satisfaction or meaningfullness. One tends to work for a salary in order to live “real” life once at home. Meaningless work tends to be stressfull, not very satisfying and sometimes even fearful because of one’s forced dependence on a salary. When one however engages with the challenges of the times that we live in, one may find little appreciation from the financial world, yet tremendous personal satisfaction, passion and happiness. Many people gain their level of intensified satisfaction by releasing (letting go) the pressure of the rewarded uselessness while adjusting one’s lifestyle, expectations and self realization into the usefullness. The reward may be less financial, its is extremely high in recognition, self esteem and love, positive stress, passion, inner drive and happiness.

During our entire day we encountered people with “laughing eyes”, with personal stories, personal awareness break throughs, heartfelt innovations, struggles, determination, network support, successes and above all warm, powerful and inspirational energy. Frustrations may be there but determination and belief in one self is more powerful. Happiness is an inner feeling linked to each step forward, physically or emotionally. It is like magic!