I want you to practice "Premeditated Happiness." Happiness is one of the most important things in your life. Happiness does wonders for your soul. You should know that reading this newsletter would not just make your life better; it will make the world a better place because you have decided to be happy!

Stay Cool, Be Happy!
Lionel

Save the date: Our next Happiness Club meeting, Thursday, September 26, 2002. The Topic is "How to Be Happy!" 7:00 - 8:45 P.M. at the Fairfield Public Library, in the Rotary Room at 1080 Old Post Road, Fairfield, CT 06824.

Happ-E-Quote:) "Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought." - Henri Bergson

Happ-E-Purpose:) Reminding you to make the "Happiness Decision." Letting you know about our meeting dates, giving you happiness information, and the latest copy of the Be Happy Zone Article that is published twice a month in the Fairfield Citizen-News. Read today's article called: POWER!

Happ-E-Quote:) "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." - Epictetus

Happ-E-Mail:) From Roy Schaffer, WISDOM: This is what we have to remember always!!

Maybe God wanted us to meet the wrong people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

Maybe when the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.

Don't go for looks; they can deceive.
Don't go for wealth; even that fades away.
Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright.
Find the one that makes your heart smile.

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you
strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything;
they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.
Live your life so that when you die, you are the one smiling and everyone around you is crying.

Happ-E-Web Site:) Our Happinessclub.com is a site to see! Click here: www.happinessclub.com. We just went over the "You are visitor 12,905" counter mark. Please write to us and let us know if you are on or near the 13,000th person. If you like this newsletter, then spread the word, and share it with your friends and colleagues. Invite them to subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to: Happinessclub@aol.com, or sign them on yourself and we will send them a note that it was from you.

Happ-E-Web Help:) If you have web site skills please let us know. We need help with our web site. Thank You!

Happ-E-Quote:) "Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune or high position or fame or sufficient vitamins. It is due not to a want of something outside of you, but to a want of something inside you. You were made for perfect happiness. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you." - Fulton Sheen

Happ-E-Mail:) This was forwarded to me; I am not the author nor do I know who deserves the credit. Feel free to use it if you wish, and keep up the great work. You touch the lives of many in a positive way. Greg Dillon

Some good advice; how profound and how true!

We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are.

After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, or when we retire.

The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. Happiness is the way.

Happ-E-Quote:) "To be truly happy, you need a clear sense of meaning and purpose in life." - Brian Tracy

Happ-E-Meeting:) Our meeting on "HOW TO BE HAPPY" will take place on Thursday, September 26, 2002, at the Fairfield Public Library at 1080 Old Post Road, Fairfield. There will be a presentation by Lionel Ketchian, Lynette Turner and Lisa Simms. The meeting will be filmed by some of the graduating class of film students from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) from New York. Raeanne Wright is doing her Senior Film Project Thesis. She is doing a film documentary about our club and about happiness. You need to be comfortable and accept the fact that this meeting will be documented on film for educational purposes. It is a positive film that is being made for studying the places that Americans look for happiness, and the places they really find it. She is planing on entering her work in film festivals. Raeanne will let us know when it airs on Oprah. We hope! Open to the Public and Admission is Free

Happ-E-Quote:) "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." -- Robert F. Kennedy

BE HAPPY ZONE
Fairfield Citizen-News
August 14, 2002

POWER!
By Lionel Ketchian

"We have, I fear, confused power with greatness," said Stewart L. Udall in his commencement address to Dartmouth College graduates on June 13, 1965. Yes, and what an important difference! The tenth edition of Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines the word POWER: as ability to act or produce an effect. We want power, we fear power, but we really do not understand power.

"The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use - of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public." These are the powerful words by one of our past Presidents, Robert F. Kennedy. Now more than ever we seem to be living in a world where the abuse of power has become headline news every single day!

We have all heard the quote: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," by Lord Action. Or this one: "The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse," words uttered by Edmund Burke in 1771. But do we understand what real power is. Maybe we must call real power - "authentic power." Authentic power is the power that comes from Being Happy. Being happy means realizing that you cannot be happy unless you are in control of yourself. This power allows you to experience being stronger, smarter, freer and more comfortable and fully yourself. It allows you to take action. It is the power TO DO IT! It is A CAN DO attitude even if you think you can't. It lets you decide what is good for you. It means doing what you can, when you can, rather than waiting for someone or something to change on it's own. It is a method of taking charge of your life and being responsible for yourself. It means finding the solutions to a problem, and making the best choice now.

Authentic power means never volunteering to make yourself a victim. It means that you do not try to control other people. It means that you do not allow yourself to be forced into acting the way that others think you should act. It allows you to feel like you can change the world because you are taking control of yourself. It allows you to deal with difficult people and anger when it arises. It gives you the ability to cope with fear and anxiety, forgive people and stop labeling them. Free yourself from self-doubt and despair, stop feeling guilty, and let go of the past so you don't react to the moment from your past conditioning. It means you become proactive to allow your wisdom and common sense to make the change you want to see in the next moment.

Authentic power is a mechanism to access new habits to self-empowerment. This power must always include wisdom because without wisdom power is unwieldy and hard to handle. Wisdom is nothing more than having the discipline to do the right thing at the right time. "We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom," said Stephen Vincent Benet in 1935. His words are just as true today, people seek power without seeking wisdom. "What is strength without a double share of wisdom?" said Milton in 1671. If you could have wisdom you could gain all the power you could ever require.

Charles Caleb Colton said in 1825, "No man is wise enough nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power." This is reason enough to develop power within yourself and not give it to everyone who says they know more than you do. When you choose unhappiness you give people and circumstances power and control over you. When you are unhappy your giving your power away. You are allowing situations to be more important than the power of control you have within yourself. Being happy is a method of reassuring yourself that you have the wisdom to think clearly about what has happened. To trust yourself and make choices that will get you where you want to be.

Authentic power means having value and meaning in your life, and this allows you to live the life you choose to live. Happiness is power for those that practice it. It is a power that requires discipline. Power without discipline, is like a car without brakes. Power is energy and discipline is control of that energy. Make it your duty to practice being happy so you can receive the power of it working for you. Robert Louis Stevenson said, "There is no duty so much underrated as the duty of being happy."

As Baltasar Gracian said in 1647, "The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good." Here are the words of a real man. Read his book, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, it is a magnificent work of wisdom. Happy people are good people, and they are also powerful individuals. They know what they want and they know how to get what they need.

Happiness gives you the ability to use the power within you. Real power is not power over someone else; it is power within you. "An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens," these are powerful words by another of our past Presidents, Thomas Jefferson.

"You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both," Emerson wrote in his Journals, in 1842. You shall have happiness, AND you shall have power, if you use your God given power of choice, or you shall have neither power nor happiness &. Choose well! Lionel Ketchian wrote in The Fairfield Citizen-News in 2002. As Goethe said: "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live."

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.

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