Intrafelism

I’m coming up on the third anniversary of writing my blog. I’ve covered several subjects. The subject I’ve written about most, is my journey to find my happiness from within myself in some way or another. I tried to find a word that captures this concept, but didn’t come up with one. Therefore, I decided to invent one, intrafelism. Intra of course is the prefix meaning from within. The latin word for happy is felix. The suffix ism means the practice of doing something. Therefore, by getting my happiness from inside myself I am practicing intrafelism, which makes me an intrafelic person.

Conversely exofelism is living a life where my happiness and well being are determined by the events outside myself. I go through my days at the mercy of the currents and waves in life.

Intrafelism is not a new concept. It is a key part of stoic philosophy among others. Stoicism is about the virtues that come from within. A key component is the belief that every individual gets to decide what any particular event means to them. I wrote about this in my fourth post, That’s All I Know

There are several different concepts that help me live an intrafelic life. Some of the main ones I’ve written about are The Great Thief, Stop, Look, Go, Control and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. They are useful, but won’t carry me to intrafelism without me practicing the ideal that I get to decide the meaning of events in my life.

As I said, the concept of intrafelism is not new. I hope that coining a word for the term will make the practice of it more popular. The poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley may have summed it up best. “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

May you have enough today, one moment at a time.