Happiness Hints!

 

May 11, 2005

 

BE HAPPY ZONE
By Lionel Ketchian

 

Do you wake up in the morning with negative thoughts entering your mind? Do you start each day allowing unwanted thoughts to fill your head? Don't be a thought-a-holic because it will lead you to worry and torment your mind about things you have no control over.

 

The "Happiness Decision" is the first thing you can do to make happiness a part of your life. Now you can make the choice to be happy over anything and everything else in life.

 

Aristotle said, "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose to life, the whole aim and end of human existence."

 

When you are happy you are practicing emotional competence. When you are unhappy you allow yourself to become emotionally incompetent.

 

The Happiness Decision supports your health in positive ways and there is more scientific evidence discovered about this every day.

 

Gratitude is 95% of happiness. If you are grateful you can't be unhappy. Be grateful for the little things in your life. When you look at garbage on the lawn you can be grateful that you can see it with your miraculous eyesight.

 

Happiness is power! Happiness is the opposite of fear. When you are unhappy, you giving your power away. Happiness gives you energy and without it you are running on empty. Unhappiness is not only psychologically depressing it is also physically depressing, so your mind and body are needlessly stressed.

 

Unhappiness is disempowering. Feel good about yourself by liking yourself. If you don't like yourself the chances are that it would feel incongruent for you to feel good about someone else.

 

This can help you look for the good in others. Just by being happy and feeling good we affect the way other people connect to us.

 

Happiness is a letting go of trying to control events and people. Instead, happiness allows you to focus on controlling yourself. This is the one thing that can empower you to make the best possible choices in the moment.

 

Epictetus said: "All situations unfold as they do regardless of how we feel about them. Our hopes and fears sway us, not events themselves." So don't let your negative emotions decide the meaning of events.

 

Being Happy allows you to get out of your own way! Happiness is true freedom. One of the best reasons to have happiness is so that you have it in order to give it away. If you don't have happiness, you can't give it to others. Sharing our state of being happy with others enables us to maintain it more easily.

 

There is nothing more empowering that parents can do for their children than maintain their own happiness. This will teach children to become happy individuals by your own example.

 

Serving others is one of the highest forms of happiness. Start a Happiness Club in your area. Being interested in teaching others happiness is one of the best ways to have it for yourself.

 

Read some good books on happiness. We have almost 400 of them on our Happiness Club web site. You can read Gateway to Happiness by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, which is the most comprehensive book on happiness I have ever read. It was written for people of the Jewish faith but it is an encyclopedia of extensive happiness intelligence for everyone.

 

Your Best Life Now, by Joel Olsteen is a New York Times Best Selling book that teaches the value and importance of happiness in your life from a common sense Christian perspective and is excellent for everyone.

 

The Art Of Happiness, by The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D. is an excellent study of happiness through the Buddhist religion and is good for people of all persuasions.

 

Happy 4 Life: Here's How to Do It, by Bob Nozik, M.D. Dr. Nozik has studied happiness and teaches it. Dr. Nozik has been happy for the last 19 years and he knows what he is writing about when it comes to happiness. Bob Nozik, M.D., and Aymee Coget, a Ph.D. candidate, both run the California Happiness Club in San Francisco.

 

Being in the present moment is essential to happiness. Awareness is a critical ingredient of happiness. Only a conscious person can be happy. Only a conscious happy person can use the power of making a choice for his own good. Ego is the enemy of happiness, and thinking can create unhappiness. Learn not to take things personally. Most of our thinking is about obsessing over things we have no control over. Happiness is a way to inner peace and a doorway for peace in the world. Find 10-15 minutes of quiet time twice a day to meditate or just be with yourself to embrace happiness and peace of mind. To know that you are on the right path, authentic happiness is found within, not in external situations.

 

Our next Happiness Club meeting will be on Thursday, May 19, from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. The presentation will be "The Unhappiness Conspiracy!" The meeting will be held at the Sullivan Independence Hall, Fairfield. Admission is free; everyone is welcome. Looking forward to seeing you. Come on down, meet some great people, get connected, and step out with joy in your life!

 

Lionel Ketchian is the founder of the Happiness Club, a Happiness Coach, and can be reached at PrintLRK@aol.com. The Web site is www.HappinessClub.com.