Dear Happy Friends,

Happy Valentine's Day!
If you would like a free "Happiness Fill Up," join us at our monthly meeting
of the Happiness Club in the Fairfield Public Library at 1080 Old Post Road,
at 7:00 P.M., in the Rotary Room on Thursday, February 15, 2001. Admission is
free, so come and enjoy the talk, "The Heart of Happiness!"

Looking forward to seeing you!
Sending you Happiness,
Lionel

PS Sending you a copy of the January 31st article. It is sent to you with
permission from the Fairfield Citizen-News.

LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!

January 31, 2001
BE HAPPY ZONE
By Lionel Ketchian

The three most important things about real estate are LOCATION! LOCATION!
LOCATION! It's just as true when it applies to your HAPPINESS.

Like most people you are looking for happiness. Our country is founded on the
principle of the "pursuit of happiness." We have grown up being told, and
have believed, that happiness is out there -- somewhere. Happiness cannot be
found "out there;" it is within you. So happiness is a matter of LOCATION!
LOCATION! LOCATION! If you cannot find happiness where you are right now,
where are you going to find it?

You may be spending your life in the pursuit of happiness. That would be
wonderful if the pursuit lead you to finding happiness. It does not lead to
happiness, and you know that's true from your own experience. Often it leads
you to the very opposite, which is unhappiness. As long as you think someone else

will make you happy, you have taken the power away from yourself to make it happen.

You are waiting for the right things to happen, so you can finally be happy.
But you are losing valuable days of your life. You are waiting to finish
school so you can get on with your life, and get a good job so you can pay
for your education and make a living. You're waiting to find someone nice so
you can have a loving partner and get married, and have kids. Now you wait
for the kids to grow up, catch up on the bills for the kids, and the house,
so you can be happy. You hope the kids finally leave the house so you can be
happy. You try to make enough money for retirement so you can finally be
happy. Yet happiness has somehow eluded you.

It will not be your mate, your marriage, your kids, your house or your money
that makes you happy. Happiness is not found outside of yourself. Happiness
can only be done from the inside out. When you need reasons to be happy, you
end up with reasons to be unhappy. Why does that happen each and every time?
Because life will never be perfect enough for you to be happy. You must
first be happy for everything to finally be perfect enough.

Once again, happiness is a matter of location. As long as you put your power
outside of yourself, you allow someone, or something else to have power over
you, and you will not be happy. The same is true of allowing yourself to be
happy when the situation gets better. Great! Now you're happy because things
are finally going the way you want. But, just as soon as the situation becomes

worse, you become unhappy again, that is if you were ever happy to begin with.

Many times you end up getting the situation you desire in life and you are still

unhappy. Worrying about losing something good, prevents you from being happy.
It's strange because you get what you want, than worry about losing it. This
is the way millions of people live their lives. They just don't know where
happiness is located.

Why give people, events, situations and even serious illness power over you?
Change what you can, and don't give the things you can't change any power
over you. Happiness is an issue of power. When you give your power away to
any of life's situations, you lose your happiness. It is so important not to
give up your power, which is your happiness. Think about it, if something
makes you unhappy, it has power over you, right? If a person makes you
unhappy it is an issue of power. They seem to have the power to make you
unhappy. In truth, you have given them your power. Remember to take it back
and use your power. It belongs to you.

We think we have to get loud and angry to change things. Get mad, get sad,
and get even. In other words, we think we have to become unhappy to get what
we want. It is a current belief that acting unhappy is a powerful way to
change things that you don't like. Actually the opposite is true. When you
stay happy, you are exercising your power. Staying happy allows you to access
your wisdom. Stay with your happiness; it's what you want. Think about a time
when you were unhappy. Take a good look at how you feel when you are unhappy.
Is it worth feeling like that for anything? No, and besides staying happy
will get you what you want quicker, and better than unhappiness will.

In the book, As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen, he says, "Let a man radically
alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it
will effect in the material conditions of his life." Remember, what happened
is not as important as what you do about what happened.

Now, you know more about happiness. If you want to earn your BHD, which is
"Being Happy Daily," take my course "Personal Power and Success Through
Happiness," at the Fairfield Campus of Sacred Heart University, every Tuesday
from March 20 to April 10. Call Gloria at SHU 365-7587 for registration.

If you would like a free "Happiness Fill Up," join us at our monthly meeting
of the Happiness Club in the Fairfield Public Library at 1080 Old Post Road,
at 7:00 P.M., in the Rotary Room on Thursday, February 15, 2001. Admission is
free, so come and enjoy the talk, "The Heart of Happiness!"

The next time someone asks, "Where do you find happiness?" Tell them it is
all about location, location, location. Tell them they are standing on the
very spot for finding happiness ... within yourself.

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

Click here: www.happinessclub.com