Happiness and Holidays

Happiness and Holidays

The best way for a person to have happy thoughts is to count his blessings and not his cash.  ~Author Unknown

Why am I writing about the holiday season, well the traditional season that starts at Thanksgiving and runs through New Year’s Day seems to have grown in size.  We pretty much now celebrate from pre-Halloween through Valentine’s Day.  This extended holiday season is here and it typically comes with two things.  The first is the opportunity to go to lots of parties, to see family and friends, heck you even get some gifts, lots of good food and usually an opportunity to travel.  The second thing that comes with the holiday season is stress.  Over the holidays we have to make things for potlucks, or even provide for hosting our own parties.  We have gifts to buy, desserts to make, places to be and through all of it we have to be happy and smiling even if the roads are icy, the temperature’s are freezing, we don’t feel well or you have to put up with your spouse’s boss who you despise.

So how do you deal with it, what can you do to help you sit back and enjoy the madness?  First, you can relax; it’s the holidays not life and death.  If you have to buy instead of bake a pie it’s not the end of the world, the quickie gift will not kill your friendship.  You can miss a party if you’re not feeling well and honestly, a thoughtful card will make people incredibly happy.  You don’t have to go overboard looking for the perfect gift.

So as we slide into and through the madness of this extended holiday season, breath, relax and be kind and don’t worry you aren’t required to do anything for Groundhogs Day, at least not yet.  And as always, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

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Happiness and a New Home

Hello everyone, 

Nothing very deep tonight, I’m tired, to be honest I’m utterly physically and mentally exhausted.  I’ve been running non-stop since July and the last month has been insane.  In the middle of all of the nuttiness I bought a house, you know, because I needed a bunch of extra things to do in my life. 

Tonight I sit in my new house, filled with a lot of boxes, some empty I’m happy to say, the essentials of a home are all functioning, heat and AC, all of the appliances, TV & Internet.  Tonight I made dinner here for the first time, and am sitting here working on this piece watching a little football.  Tonight I’m able to breathe, relax just a bit and for the first time enjoy that this place is starting to feel less like a new house and more like a new home.

I hope this finds you all safe, relaxed and happy as well tonight ~ Rev Kane

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Wisdom from the Dalai Lama

Wisdom from the Dalai Lama

Modern education is premised strongly on materialistic values. It is vital that when educating our children’s brains that we do not neglect to educate their hearts, a key element of which has to be the nurturing of our compassionate nature.

Although we are all the same in not wanting problems and wanting a peaceful life, we tend to create a lot of problems for ourselves. Encountering those problems, anger develops and overwhelms our mind, which leads to violence. A good way to counter this and to work for a more peaceful world is to develop concern for others. Then our anger, jealousy and other destructive emotions will naturally weaken and diminish.

Developing concern for others, thinking of them as part of us, brings self-confidence, reduces our sense of suspicion and mistrust, and enables us to develop a calm mind.

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Happiness and Family

Happiness and Family

Tonight I’m writing to just say how thankful I am for my nieces and nephews and to just revel in how much joy they bring me.  I have 5 so far, 3 nieces and 2 nephews, their ages include 3 months, 3 years, 5 years, 7 years and 9 years.  One of my nieces just broke her thumb and thumbed the authority and went to camp anyway, one of my nephews drove a golf ball 100 yards at golf camp, two of them just showed up at the happiest place on earth and my niece got the full princess make-up treatment and looked more happy than I could possibly imagine a little girl could look.  My 3 month old niece is even starting to mimicking the sounds that other people send at her.

I haven’t always had the closest of relationships with my family, but my nieces and nephews have absolutely brought me more happiness than anything else in my life.  I’m single, I don’t have any children and for some people that means my life is somehow diminished and maybe they are correct, but I think the best five little people in my life bring me more happiness than I can imagine.  I hope you have the same kind of people in your life and as always, have a happy day my friends.  ~ Rev Kane

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Deng Ming-Dao on Optimism

Deng Ming-Dao on Optimism

Clearing blue sky,
A promise in bare branches.
In winter, there are sunny days.
In adulthood, childhood can return.

01In winter, all things appear dead or dormant.  The rain and snow seem incessant, the nights long.  Then one day, the sky clears to a brilliant blue.  The air warms.  A mist rises from the earth and the perfume of water, clay, and moss drifts through the air.  Gardeners are seen preparing new stock, though they are only bare branches and a gray root ball.  The people are optimistic:  They know that there will be an end to the cold.

In adulthood, we often see responsibilities as something dreadful.  Why should we dig the ground when the weather is disagreeable?  We see activities only as obligations, and we strain against our fate.  But there is a joy to working in harmony with the proper time.  When we do things at just the right occasion and those efforts bear fruit later, the gratification is tremendous.

There was an old man who began an orchard upon his retirement.  Everyone laughed at him.  Why plant trees?  They told him that he would never live to see a mature crop.  Undaunted, he planted anyway, and he has seen them blossom and has eaten their fruit.  We all need that type of optimism.  That is the innocence and hope of childhood.

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Happiness Resources

Happiness Resources

Today a list of links and sites to help you on your path to happiness, have a happy day friends ~ Rev Kane

happ image

Seattle Sustainability Project  a project to help your well-being.

Another project for communities and individuals, the Happiness Initiative

Having a large circle of friends leads to happiness

Matt Killingsworth TED Talk on Happiness, Stay in the moment

Other  Posts You Might Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary – Ministry of Happiness: Our Best Posts

Fear is Killing Your Happiness

Remember the Sweet Things

Happiness is Taking Risks

Appalachian Trail Happiness: Acceptance is the Way

 

 

 

 

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Happiness is Volunteering

Happiness is Volunteering

happiness, volunteering, volunteer, charity

Happiness is being a volunteer

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope ~ Barack Obama

You can do your part by paying it forward, send this little bit of happiness on to others and ask that they do the same and as always, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

A really interesting post on Happiness and Volunteering  http://blogs.volunteermatch.org/engagingvolunteers/2012/01/30/happiness-will-save-the-world/

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Great Hikes & Treks

Happiness is Taking Risks

Fear is Killing Your Happiness

Happiness is a Choice

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Happy 77th Birthday to the Dalai Lama

Happy 77th Birthday to the Dalai Lama

I love the Dalai Lama, a man I have never met, but in reading his words and watching him in interviews he is the living example of how to live a happy and fulfilled life regardless of the circumstances you are under.  Have a happy day my friends and happy birthday your holiness ~ Rev Kane

Happy Birthday your holiness!

The Dalai Lama’s message thanking well wishers:

I would like to thank everyone who attended celebrations of my birthday. At the same time I would like to express my deep appreciation of the many friends and well-wishers who, remembering that it was my birthday, sent their warm greetings; among them many friends in the People’s Republic of China.

I am also aware that my fellow countrymen and women in Tibet would have remembered me on this day, although they would have been unable to participate in celebrations due of circumstances beyond their control. I would like to thank all of them too, while expressing my own admiration of their indomitable Tibetan spirit, their courage and determination.

And finally the Dalai Lama on affection:

Affection and a calm mind are important to us. A calm mind is good for our physical health, but it also enables us to use our intelligence properly and to see things more realistically. Affection too is important because it counters anger, hatred and suspicion that can prevent our minds from functioning clearly.

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Happiness Resources: April 26, 2016

Happiness Resources: April 26, 2016

The results of our regular tour around the web to find you useful bits of information to help make your life better and happier, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

First tonight another TED Talk link, Dan Gilbert’s Why are we happy? 

The happiest man in the world!

Seven tips for making yourself happy in the next hour!

An interesting perspective on money and happiness.

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Fear is Killing Your Happiness

Our Best Happiness Posts for 2015

Revisiting Some of Our Best Posts & Pictures

There are Angels Among Us: A True Story of Giving & Kindness

Remember the Sweet Things

 

 

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Summertime Happiness

Summertime Happiness

Summertime, happiness, sunset

Summertime Happiness is Hawaii

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. ~ John Lubbock

I can feel the summer coming to an end, and with it of course summertime happiness. There was just a whiff of fall that I caught on the air during a bike ride this weekend.  That smell does a couple of things for me, first it triggers my reduction in shaving and the beginnings of the growing of a fall beard.  That meant a lot more when I lived in colder climates but it is a tradition I have kept up.  I love the fall, it has always been the most exciting part of the year for me.  When I was a kid it signaled school starting and I loved going to school, it also came to mean hunting season and the start of the NFL season.

However today I want to talk about summer, about the simple joys of being a kid in summer.  What triggered my post tonight was a sound, a simple sound that I knew instantly what it was but couldn’t quite place.  It was a tune, I listened and after a bit it came to me it was Scott Joplin’s, The Entertainer.  More importantly it was being played on an ice cream truck and yes all I could hear in my head was the exasperated childhood voice screaming, “ice cream man!”  I remember that sound from childhood, our ice cream man was named Pete, it’s a bit of summertime happiness that is a memory that always makes me smile.

summertime, happiness, reading

Summertime Happiness is Reading

It also brought back memories of swimming for 10 hours a day in my Uncle Mike’s pool, hours hanging around on the local city playgrounds, the feeling of ice-cold water pouring down my throat when I was sweating and hot and lots of hours reading books I wanted to, not what they assigned in school.  I thought back to hours of laying on my back on a moss-covered rock in the woods staring at the sky.  Those moments so common as children are so precious and fleeting now in our complex lives.

So tonight, take a moment and think about those moments, relax and smile.  Even more importantly find a moment tomorrow or this week to relive one of those happy, happy moments.

One last thing to help you smile tonight, a little piece of music that to me is quintessential summertime, enjoy.

Have a happy day my friend ~ Rev Kane

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Books for your summer reading

Great Hikes & Treks

Happiness is Taking Risks

Fear is Killing Your Happiness

Happiness is a Choice

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