A Happier Life!

September 20, 2006
BE HAPPY ZONE
By Lionel Ketchian

I would like to share some happiness with you! Here are some happiness quotes that can help you make any day fantastic.

Leo Buscaglia has proclaimed: "What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life." Dale Carnegie has advised us: "Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think."

Hugh Downs so perfectly explains to us: "A happy person is not an individual with a given set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes." Ralph Waldo Emerson always has wonderful advice about life, and he confirmed: "The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does."

Abraham Lincoln told us: "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be." Martha Washington voiced these words: "The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go." Ben Franklin teaches us: "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."

Lord Byron points out: "All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin." Roy M. Goodman said: "Remember that happiness is a way of travel — not a destination. Burton Hills expressed: "Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life." Margaret Lee Runbeck similarly asserted: "Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling."

Wilhelm von Humboldt proclaimed: "I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves." Robert Ingersoll points out: "The place to be happy is here, the time to be happy is now."

John Milton so beautifully stated: "The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven." John Homer Miller acknowledged: "Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." Helen Keller is famous for these words of wisdom: "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."

Aristotle was a Greek writer and philosopher (384 - 322BC). Here are two great quotes of his: "Happiness depends upon ourselves." And: "To live happily is an inward power of the soul." Democritus (460-370 BC), declared: "Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul." Epictetus a Greek philosopher (55 - 135) and a favorite of mine authentically said: "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."

Sharon Salzberg advises us: "It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years - we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on." Jim Thomson resolutely states: "I can only think of one thing greater than being happy and that is to help another to be happy, too."

Robert Browning proclaimed: "Oh, make us happy and you make us good. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) pronounced: "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." Bulwer has advised us: "Happiness and virtue rest upon each other; the best are not only the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best."

John Templeton instructs us by stating: "Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it."

I assure you that these words of wisdom will shape your thoughts into happier, healthier and a more positive life now. Don't wait for things to change, happiness is the change you want.

Join us for our next Happiness Club meeting this Thursday, October 12, from 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. at the Fairfield Public Library, in the Memorial Room at 1080 Old Post Road, Fairfield. The presentation will be "Happiness Flow," by Lionel Ketchian. Meet some wonderful people using happiness in their lives.

Admission is free; everyone is welcome. For further information call Lionel Ketchian at 203 258-7777.