Being Happy All The Time

December 29, 2006
BE HAPPY ZONE
By Lionel Ketchian

Sixteen years ago, I decided to be happy. On December 24, 1990 at about 5:00 PM I realized I was happy and felt great. I didn't think that this feeling could last, so I started looking out for things that could take away the happiness that I had realized. I found many things that life presented to me that could absolutely take away my happiness if I let them. My decision to be happy, allowed me to make happiness a significant part of my life strategy.

I found that being happy, in spite of people or problems, not only allowed me to face my problems, but to select the best possible choices available to me in that moment. This became very fulfilling for me and was the beginning of my learning to become emotionally competent. I was able to exercise more intelligent choices, rather than just permitting problems to take control of my thinking and make me unhappy.

Many people do not understand how someone can be happy all the time. People feel that anyone who is happy all the time is not facing their problems. Some people think that happy people are denying their full range of emotions. When something happens that many people consider to be sad, people think that it is normal to become sad and express that emotion. The truth is, people experience the same sad situation in a variety of different ways and it all depends on their state of mind. You may become very sad if you are in an unfavorable state of mind to begin with. You may react with sadness to even a minor event, because that has been you're past conditioning and thus, your primary reaction to contrary events.

Your mind may magnify the situation as being worse than it is. Situations can be worse than they are or they can be better than they are. Happiness allows you to respond to a situation rather than react to it from a past conditional stimulus response mechanistic habit. Happiness can enable you to create new habits that are more powerful in order to respond to events with a better frame of reference for yourself. Sad emotions can dictatorially take over your reasoning and make you feel like a prisoner being held captive.

When you allow people or problems to make you unhappy, you start to feel helpless, hopeless and depressed. You feel like you have become a victim. This happens because you give your power away to people and problems. Mankind thinks it has to control people and problems. The truth is that you need to learn to control yourself, so you can discover the most practical choices and turn them into your advantage.

How you observe a problem is more important than the problem itself. Happiness allows you to perceive the problem more objectively. You might even reframe the negative situation, using happiness in order to diminish the sad feelings. When you are able to separate yourself from your reaction to the problem, you can connect with the best possible choices accessible to you at that moment. If you are unhappy about a problem, you have created two problems where you only had one. Unhappiness sustains the suffering you experience when you think about how bad the problem is, and how much you wish you did not have the problem.

Choosing happiness allows you to be more accepting of a situation because it helps you comprehend that the situation has already happened and that in actuality there is nothing you can do to change the fact that it has already occurred. The only power you have is what you will do about it. You have the power to take control of yourself. Happiness allows you to deal with any situation with much greater power by using your greater intelligence, increased emotional competence and heightened decision-making abilities. The characteristics I have just mentioned can become your strengths in life and will to work for your benefit.

Martin Seligman, Ph.D. wrote the book, Authentic Happiness. This book is a very important achievement because it is a breakthrough for the field of psychology to explore the subject of happiness, using the term "positive psychology." Dr. Seligman does an excellent job of helping us understand the usefulness of happiness. Dr. Seligman is a trailblazer in happiness research that is now sweeping the press. He has helped us to notice our "Signature strengths," as he refers to them. You are much better off learning what your strengths are and using them then you are by trying to understand your weaknesses and being used by them.

On January 6, 2007, history will be made because we will have 25 teenagers attending the first "Teen Happy Club." The meeting will take place at the Stamford Marriott, 275 Summer Street, Stamford, CT. It is open to all high school students. If you are interested please contact Dr. Cynthia Barnett for reservations and information. Phone: 203 855-9714 e-mail: DoctorCynthia@aol.com

These teens will be starting off the New Year by learning the powerful skill of happiness. Do all you can to learn to become a happy human being and you will have the greatest New Year ever!

A VERY HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO YOU!

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