But it’s something I have surprisingly few regrets about. It’s such an enriching experience to learn, not just how to stand up and speak, but to do it in a focused and structured way.

1. It taught me where Iraq was.

I confess. I was horrible at geography and history before this. I could tell you that I had heard of North Korea but I wouldn’t have been able to accurately point it out on a map.

Because of debating, I can safely say that I can at least point out a few countries.

2. It taught me to never stray from your objective.

You should never ever explain more than important. Because they’ll stop listening to you anyway after they hear what they want. And all you’ll end up doing is wasting everyone’s time including your own.

And the importance of having a clear objective becomes that much clearer. Now, I utterly hate people who do things or say things that don’t help them achieve their objective. Ok well, maybe I don’t hate them. But it’s so frustrating to hear them blabber on and on about irrelevant things, or to see them do so many things that are pointless.

Of course, to only do things relevant to your objective, you have to have an objective in the first place. Over 4 years, debate drummed it into me that you must always have an objective.

3. It honed my skills in explaining complex ideas in an economy of words.

You only have 7 minutes to explain how you want to save the world before bedtime.

Let’s say it takes 5 seconds to say a sentence. That’s only 84 sentences you can say to describe the political situation in some country on the other side of the world and explain why aid is the worst thing you can do to the farmers in the area as well as put forward your own solution for the problem at hand and of course defend it from the arguments of your opponent.

Did I mention you have to find the flaws in what your opponent says and attack those too? 7 minutes is waaaayyyyy too short.

4. It made me meet so many kinds of people.

There are a number of awesome people in this world. It seems that a huge proportion of them are in debate. Not only that, you get to meet so many varieties. I don’t just mean in terms of race or culture. I also mean in terms of people who are just different. Their styles, their personalities, their very outlook on life.

And where else could you find such a diverse group who would be more than willing to talk and talk and talk and…

5. It allowed me to get away from the calculator.

I’m in engineering. The hard sciences don’t give much room to discuss world issues in class. In law or economics or sociology, you discuss world issues all the time. So I stepped out of my classroom and tried to be a little more well-rounded. I didn’t want to just be a guy who knew how numbers worked. I wanted to know what those numbers meant.

Engineering is supposed to use science to solve real world problems. How do I do that unless I know what those “real world problems” are?

So…

If you’ve got the time, join debate. It’s so worth it.

If you haven’t got it, make time.

So to know if you’re happy or not, you would first have to know how much you want. To that end I’ve identified a few areas that need to be fulfilled to achieve an environment where happiness can thrive. This environment won’t give you happiness, but it will remove your worries so you have the chance to achieve that happiness.

It’s hard to define it all at once so I’ve divided it into sections that can be focused on one at a time.

1. Physical Environment

Inner. Body, health.

Outer. Where you live. Hills? City? Island? Big house? Small house? Mansion?

2. Social Environment

Inner. What kind of person you are. Do you enjoy having people over?

Outer. How many people do you meet everyday? How many friends do you invite over?

3. Emotional Environment

Inner. How you deal with your own emotions. Are you calm? Easily angered?

Outer. When you interact with your friends and family, what’s the level of emotional intimacy? Do you express everything loudly? Or do you tease each other a lot? Do you want to keep the parent-child divide?

4. Intellectual Environment

Inner. Do you challenge yourself intellectually? Always look for the meaning behind things?

Outer. Do situations arise that stimulate your mind?

5. Spiritual Environment

Inner. What level of awareness you’re at. How you feel spiritually.

Outer. What those around you are doing spiritually. The level of encouragement or discouragement from community.

I’ll spend some time writing up about each environment. What do I mean? How does it help us thrive?

And of course, where does money fit into this?

“That’s the silliest question in the world!!”

After all, how can you not know if you’re happy? But the fact is that you don’t. Not till you notice that you have a great family that supports you, or that you’re not living in the slums.

The fact is that we don’t normally know what we want and it’s only the moment it’s gone that we realize how good we had it! I can only imagine one reason for this. We don’t really know what makes us happy.

We chase other things

And so we chase other things, until family and friends are forgotten. Until we trade that job with a great boss for a job with a little higher pay that we hate.

Maybe, just maybe, we could sit down for a minute. And think about what we actually want in life. What would make us happy. The core values that we are really after.

Maybe we’re already happy?

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find that a lot of what we’re after is already there around us. Sitting right there waiting for us to appreciate it.

So the question goes:

If you were happy, would you know it?