Sunday, April 15, 2007

Genuine Happiness Starts Right Here

Genuine Happiness begins with YOU - and a decision to simply.....well...

BE HAPPY!

Life isn't always sweet like candy. At times our lives are overloaded with 'challenges,' stress, and a general weight that often seems hard to bear.

During these 'rough times' - Look around...

Look to others and - if possible, share some of their happiness. Decide to! Just do it! Refrain from comparing THEIR better circumstance to YOUR current problems. Refrain from grumbling about how someone else might be having a 'happier' time in life than you are. This is important - because - it will teach you to stop focusing on 'self' in negative or 'pressurized' ways. By 'Pressurized' - this means - heaping pressure on yourself to solve every problem, get OUT of your current bad situation, take on too much pressure and responsibility for your circumstances.

Often bad things happen in life that are absolutely not under our sphere of control. In these cases, it doesn't help one little bit to focus on 'self' too hard - to determine if we could have prevented a bad event of situation (obsessing on 'the past'), to tell ourselves that certain things are our own fault (self-blame, punishing self), or to come up with a solution (taking too much responsibility for something outside of our realm of control).

In many instances, once 'self' is removed from intense focus and we observe others in a happier or more reasonable state, we begin to pick up 'hints' of what THEY ARE DOING to experience happiness. In the least, enjoying or appreciating someone else's happy moments or circumstances can be distraction enough to remove some of the 'self'-focus that might be hindering our true abilities to find solutions outside ourselves.

In a way, 'happiness' is an exercise in promoting a positive attitude. This is best learned in 'good situations,' although most people don't consider the element of 'happiness,' until they are experiencing everything BUT happiness. It is a curious thing, how this works - how people are reminded of the wish to be happy by the presence of 'unhappy' feelings, situations, events.

Do you ever wonder how some people manage to 'stay happy,' or have 'low times' that are of remarkably short duration? Do you know anyone like this? Someone that, possibly, you admire for his or her ability to see 'the light of every situation?'

If so - watch that person - ask that person, if you get the chance, how he or she manages to keep a positive attitude in the face of adversity. Likely, the person will be more than happy to share techniques. Make sure you listen closely to his or her answer, if you are provided with some 'tips' - no matter whether the person's perceptions of life seem vastly apart from yours or not. After all, a different viewpoint is worth serious consideration - if the person you asked is happy and positive - while you are obviously not! If you ignore suggestions just because the suggestions are different than what you currently understand or are familiar with - the 'asking' has been in vain!

Until the time arrives when you can discover the secrets of one of these 'perpetually positive' people, here are some tips:

A very first step to becoming a genuinely happy person is to love yourself.

Loving yourself involves being able to accept yourself and accept other people. Accept that you and other people are not perfect individuals. Love yourself and those around you despite universal imperfections.

Genuine happiness also involves being satisfied with what you have - to a certain degree. When you feel contented with the job you have, the way you look, with your family and friends, the place you live in, your car, and all the things you now have – truly, you'll be aware of answers to any questions surrounding “how to be genuinely happy.”

When we discover a small start of happiness somewhere from within, that small start will eventually lead to something else, and to something else, and so on. If, however, you keep questioning life, its obstacles, and such - and if you are always prepared to state that life hasn't hardly ever dealt you any good cards, you'll never be able to find genuine happiness.

I believe that life is about finding out about right and wrong, trying and failing, wining and losing. These are things that happen as often as you inhale and exhale. Failure, in a person’s life has become as abundant and necessary as air. But this should not hinder us from becoming happy.

How to be genuinely happy in spite all these things? I tell you… every time you exert effort to improve the quality of life and your being, whether it is cleaning up your room, helping a friend, taking care of your sick dog, failing the board exams and trying again, life gives you equivalent points for that. Also, remember that failures are not all punishments and losses. They are life's way of telling you that something doesn't work in the way that you thought it would. Use 'failure' to help you pin-point mistakes - instead of using failure to tell yourself that life is unfair, that nothing works out right, that you never do anything right.

Imagine life as a big score board like those which are used in the pro sports world such as NFL, NBA, or NHL. Every time you take a step forward, you make scoring points. Wouldn’t it be nice to look at that board at the end of each game and think to yourself “Whew! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot.”, instead of looking at it all blank and murmur “Geez, I didn’t even hit a score today. I wish I had the guts to try out. We could have won!” In the end, the statement you decide upon at the end of the day is ALL YOURS...you can make a positive or a negative, complaining statement. What kind of statement do you really want to make at the end of each of your days?

Make darn sure that you start taking notice of your improvements, positive things in your life, positive outcomes of situations that you are in. Positive experiences are replicable. Learn to mind how your thinking has been when positive events and situations are occuring in your life. In this, you can begin to 'prevent' needless unhappiness. PAY ATTENTION to happiness when you're experiencing it, during fun events, good conversation with friends, etc.

Just like in matters of physical health - the best solution to the problem of sickness - is PREVENTION! With happiness, you want to 'prevent' the repetition of undue or unnecessary amounts of 'unhappiness' in your life. With physical health versus sickness, we REPEAT good health practices in order to stay well. If we get sick for a little while, we take care of ourselves better until the sickness passes - and then we keep working on maintaining health. If we want 'happiness-wellness' - we need to find out what makes us happy, then REPEAT good practices that maintain our happiness. When troublesome things occur to affect our happiness, we should take better care of ourselves until the troublesome elements work their way through our lives. Afterward, we get back on track with 'maintenance' again.

Happiness is a decision. Happiness won't fall in your lap just because you feel that you are in need of experiencing happiness at a certain time. If your perspective is always open to the receipt of happiness - and if you've decided to become responsible for making the decision to take on a 'happy perspective,' you will become a happier person.

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