My brick wall

I've been doing some study on self-improvement, prioritizing, goal-setting, mission statements and the like. I've gotten up quite a head of steam and successfully set aside chunks of time to work on the program I've chosen and spend some time in deep thought about the concepts and principles involved. I was chugging right along and feeling pretty good about it all until I hit a huge brick wall.

One of the components of the program, used to determine what you should be doing with your life, is answering the question:

"What have been some of my greatest moments of happiness and fulfillment?"

For some reason, I cannot answer that question. I put pencil to paper and I cannot write.

Part of my problem is the exactitude with which I handle language. That sentence compels me to list THE absolute top moments in my life. They must have made me happy AND fulfilled. What is happiness? What is fulfillment? Is anyone ever happy or fulfilled, are we even promised happiness, should we seek it, etc., etc., etc. Yes, my head is a busy, busy place.

Many guys who see that question probably jot down, "My wedding day. The day my kids were born. The day I made manager. Restoring my old GTO," and move on to the next question. Thirty seconds flat. I cannot do that. It seems shallow and dishonest. And my story doesn't line up with most of that. At all.

I also refuse to write something I don't really mean because this is serious business, designed to make me confront such issues. For the sake of moving on I want to just put something there, like all the things you're supposed to put there. But those times were often tinged with great sadness for me. So, part of my problem is the guilt I would feel for leaving those things out.

I don't know if I ever have been "happy" in the conventional sense. Maybe I just have an unrealistic idea of what that's supposed to be like. Maybe I overestimate everyone else's moments of joy. Maybe they're overselling them.

I feel like I've spent very little time doing anything that I really wanted to do, either because I was too fearful to try, circumstances wouldn't allow it, or I was too busy living up to other people's expectations of what I am supposed to be doing. And that's a clue: I seem to make other people happy all the time.

"Hello? Mr. Sharp? Yes, this is your midlife crisis calling. How am I doing so far?"

I intend to provide some answers soon. This will end up being good for me because I plan to start doing the happy stuff. Once I found out what it is!