So this week two things lined up to inspire this post tonight. The first resulted from an issue at work that gets under my skin every time. So I posted this bit of life advice online:

Don’t be the type of employee who follow the rules or does your job only when the boss is looking over your shoulder. Be better than that.

The second was seeing the image below on Twitter, but similar posts fly around on Facebook as well.

My favorite bit of advice, for obvious reasons is Don’t pick a fight with an old man, if he’s too old to fight, he might just kill you. I think I have a new poster for my office.

There’s a book on my list of books to write, that list is unfortunately long and I need to get in gear and get them written. The book is a book of life advice to leave behind for my nieces and nephews. I think the list above would be a lovely place to start.

As the image states, a lot of this all just comes down to common sense. The fact is we all know how to be good employees, we all know it’s wrong to screw off when the boss isn’t around and only work when they are present. The true quality of every person is how they act when no one else is watching. If someone drops their wallet in front of you and walks away, your quality is determined by the choice you make at that moment. We all know the right thing to do is pick up the wallet and chase after the person to give it back to them. But if no one else is watching do you do that, or do you pocket the wallet and later pull out the cash and throw it out? We all encounter these type of situations regularly and over your life you develop a pattern of choices. These choices determine at the end of the day whether or not you’re a good person or not.

So what does this have to do with happiness? One thing I’ve learned over the years is that living a happy life is very much the same things as being a good person. In every situation, with every new day, we encounter new situations that give us a chance to be happy or not. How can I say that? Well, what matters in many situations is not what happens to us, as much as how we chose to deal with the situation. It can be as simple as choosing not to lose your cool when you get cut off in traffic, or when your toddler wipes out their bowl of cereal all over the floor. Now we have no choice with the truly catastrophic things that happen to us, at those times we need to grieve and heal. However a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime of making the happier choices leads to a life of happiness. We talked about micro habits recently, and this is another opportunity to employ that strategy, start with just making one conscious happy choice each morning when you wake up. Each day decide to start with a small positive affirmation when first looking in the mirror. Tell yourself, this will be a happy day. It’s a small choice, a few seconds of thought, but doing it consistently can help you have happier days. ~ Rev Kane