The Ministry of Happiness

Happiness & Cynicism

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness & Cynicism

It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad; and it is, better still to sit with the good than alone. It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge than to remain silent; but silence is better than idle words. ~ Mohammed

It’s very easy in our world to become cynical, I speak from experience. I’ve always been a very cynical person, it comes from living in a world where people let you down, with consistency. A world where our politicians will say anything to get elected, where elected officials are more concerned with opposing the other political party than actually governing or trying to help people. I see on TV every day advertisements from coal and oil companies talking about how much they love the environment, pretending that we can burn petroleum free of consequences. We are bombarded on a daily basis from a hundred directions manipulated by expert advertisers whose job it is to tell us what we like, what we care about, who to vote for, what we should look like and even who the good guys and bad guys are in the world. It makes you wonder at times if any of your thoughts are your own.

Be happy

It is a quick and easy path to cynicism for those of us who think and feel. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to see a dark futility in being so cynical. That time frame not so surprisingly fairly closely corresponds to the birth of the Ministry of Happiness. In creating a happier life for myself, it seemed appropriate, maybe even necessary to share and help others; maybe it was just about having some company on the path. Through this journey some of the cynical edge to my view has begun to dissipate and it has helped me progress toward a happier life. Hopefully some of what we do here will help you as well, and as always, be happy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane.

Happiness and Children

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness and Children

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Flying his way into happiness

So recently the Rev had a wonderful opportunity I got to meet my new nephew, this is my third and he’s absolutely adorable. So for today what I decided to find some resources on keeping and making children happy. Even if you had a hard childhood, we all had those moments of carefree bliss in our childhood. It is my hope for my little niece that she has as much of that, for as long as possible. So here are some resources, some readings on that very topic. Have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

A piece from Oprah’s network
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/5-Keys-to-Your-Childs-Happiness/1

How sad, American children rank #20 in the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6360517.stm

Some thoughts on happier schools
http://www.thenation.com/article/166211/putting-kids-happiness-our-educational-radar

More on Happiness from the Ministry of Happiness!

Are You Noticed, Valued, Loved?

Happiness is Love and Unconventional Wisdom

Love, Happiness and Words from my Favorite Writers

Dalai Lama on Love and Compassion

Posted in personal happiness, The Wisdom of Children | Tagged children, gibran, happiness, happy, inspiration, kids, life, positivity, raising children | 1 Comment

Happiness and not being happy

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness and not being happy

The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up. ~ Charles L. Morgan

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour. ~ Unknown

Last night a friend of mine of mine posted something on Facebook that I thought was really spectacular and quite profound, here are her words:

I’ve been trying to teach my children it’s ok to feel your feelings … and ya know what it’s ok for us adults to … I keep hearing what you put out is what you get in, I get this I really do but I am allowed to be blue, I am allowed to be mad, I am allowed to be frustrated, I am allowed to feel like I am drowning … I am simply allowed to feel.

I of course chimed in that it’s ok to be happy as well, but my friend makes a great point it is both important and ok to feel your feelings and that includes when you’re not happy as well as when you are. You see, and this may be a bit paradoxical, but feeling your negative feelings can make you happier in the end. The reason for this is that bottling up your emotions is a very bad thing, it creates stress and anxiety and all of the things that in the end can impact your health in bad ways and unhealthy people are rarely happy people.

Below is a link to a quick little piece on the impacts of negative emotions and it’s worth a look: http://takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/create-healthy-lifestyle/emotions-and-attitudes/how-do-emotions-attitudes-impact-health

So remember friends it is ok to feel, whatever you’re feeling, in the end you’ll be better off, and as always, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged depression, feelings, happiness, happy, inspiration, life, sad | Leave a comment

Happy Holiday, Easter, or whatever you celebrate

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happy Holiday, Easter, or whatever you celebrate

Happy Holiday to you all my friends, whether you celebrate Passover, are about to celebrate Easter or a spring festival of new life and fertility. All of our spring holidays have a wonderfully positive spin to them, they all celebrate the idea of renewal, the possibility of new life. Like this season where new life abounds around us, we look forward to the positivity of life. It’s been great to see my Facebook wall filled with pictures of nieces and nephews, and friend’s children painting eggs. In the spirit of all of this warmth and happiness I’m including a video today, what Easter is all about, as told by some children, guaranteed to raise a smile, have a happy day my friends.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/8440ce104f/the-magic-of-easter-as-told-by-kids

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged bunny, children, easter, eggs, holiday, life, pagan, passover | 1 Comment

Happiness Rankings Worldwide

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness Rankings Worldwide

From time to time I see articles on worldwide happiness rankings and the United States bounces around in these rankings but we’re usually between 10 and 15^th, they all have slightly different criteria, so I thought tonight I’d pass some of the links along for you to check out.

UN Happiness rankings, US came in #11, Denmark #1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2124553/Brits-come-18th-UNs-World-Happiness-rankings–Costa-Rica-Israel-UAE.html

A comparison of three indexes, once again Denmark rocking two of them as #1 with Costa Rica taking the other.

http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/ne-data/10294-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world.html#axzz1rDjWATfW

A more in depth look at the world’s happiest countries, you guessed it, Denmark, the US is #14.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/14/world-happiest-countries-lifestyle-realestate-gallup-table.html

A color coded map of happiness worldwide and a lot of data and detail underneath

http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/hap_nat/nat_fp.php?mode=6

Posted in happiness resources | Tagged denmark, happiness, happy, inspiration, life, news, rankings | Leave a comment

Happiness, Communication, and Simplicity

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness, Communication, and Simplicity

What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner. ~ Colette

So recently there has been an image floating around the internet and it’s one I really like for its directness and simplicity. Not too surprisingly a number of people have forwarded it to me because it reminded them of me. So here is the image:

A simple formula to be happy

For me the real beauty of all of this is the simplicity and honesty it conveys. In our quest for happiness sometimes we have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be. So take the message to heart and simplify things. The more simply and clearly we communicate with the people in our life, the easier it is to live a happy life. Another image has been bouncing around that seemed to fit well with our quest to be happier and is below, enjoy it and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Dancing Happiness

Sometimes it’s not about Happiness

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Michael Kane

Sometimes it’s not about Happiness

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. ~ Kahlil Gibran

I cycle on the weekends and am training for a new goal, my first 100 mile ride. So today was a 40 mile training ride and quite frankly it sucked. There was a pretty good headwind blowing, not intense, but constant, sort of like riding while towing a parachute. Of course you’re usually happy on a ride if the headwind is in your face on the way out because logic would suggest that you’d have a tail wind on the way home. Of course logic doesn’t take into effect the swirling motion of storm systems and sometimes you get the headwind both ways. So it was a very long day in the saddle and my quads are screaming a bit tonight. A quick nod here to my cousins who are professional cyclists and without a doubt rode harder and longer than I did today.

During my ride today about 10 miles from finishing it was time to stop whining to myself and just suck it up and turn circles. So that’s what I did and you know it hit me on the ride that’s how life is sometimes. Sometimes we can’t be focused on increasing our happiness, sometimes we just have to suck it up and turn circles because we’re facing a headwind no matter which way we go. So the next time you’re having a bad day, or a bad week remember it’s ok. It may sound a bit harsh to say suck it up and turn circles but that is just the way it is sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up about that, sometimes you just have to get through the day. That’s fine, get through that day or the week and then get back to working on being happier. It’s definitely a marathon, not a sprint, have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged cycling, happiness, happy, life, personal happiness, self-improvement | 2 Comments

Happiness Resources: The Components of Happiness

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness Resources: The Components of Happiness

A quick web survey tonight for articles related to the components of happiness below are a few links that you might find rewarding:

Six components of happiness

Satir’s Mandala – an interesting take on happiness

A really interesting piece on happiness and contentment

Happiness from the Positive Psychology movement

Happiness and the best day of your life

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness and the best day of your life

Jumping for joy is good exercise. ~Author Unknown

Yesterday I posted a wonderful story from beliefnet.com about the best day of a man’s life, it’s a really nice story about how we usually underestimate the impact we have on each other’s lives. It showed that small acts can sometimes have amazing consequences.

So today my friends I come here to ask you, what was the best day of your life? Now for a lot of us I hope the best day is yet to come and that the best day that is in your head right now will turn out to be the fifth or sixth best day of your life. Think about it, as wonderful as that day was, you still have five or six more days to look forward to that will even be better. That’s why we are here, to keep working, to keep making our life better so we can have even happier days.

I’ve been blessed in my life to have some amazing days, some true moments of total bliss, sitting on the deck of a boat on the Amazon and not seeing land, swimming with dolphins, sitting in total silence in the Gokyo Valley in the Himalayas the sun gleaming off of Khan Tiega, and holding my niece just hours after her birth. However the happiest day of my life is still the day my little brother was born. I’d always wanted a brother and I even got to name him, he was born in an ice storm which brought one more bonus a snow day from school. I can’t wait for those five days better than that one.

Gokyo valley in Nepal, Khan Tiega in the background

So drop a note in the comment sections, tell me about your best day and bring a smile to someone who reads it and as always have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged bliss, family, happiest day, happiness, happy, life, love, philosophy | Leave a comment

Happiness is simplicity

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Michael Kane

Happiness is Simplicity

Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child’s eye – it is very beautiful. ~ Kailash Satyarthi
So in this age of FaceBook, if your friends are like mine, you see a lot of signs and slogans posted each day on their walls. Most of the time they are fairly cliché or cute but occasionally one catches your eye as being a little bit deeper than you might expect. The other day a friend posted the image below:

I thought this was beautiful in its simplicity and wanted to pass it on with a few additional words and links to some of our past posts discussing the same things.

Free your heart from hatred – This is huge, for many of us we live our lives with the scars of the past. These scars can truly limit our ability to reach new heights. The fact is, although it is not easy, we are the only people who have power to remove the scars we carry. Work to remove those scars my friend, sometimes it takes a long time, but the work is worth it in the end.

Free your mind from worries – Worrying is the enemy of happiness, worrying is completely unproductive, and worrying is a waste of time and energy. If you are worrying about that which you cannot control just stop. And for the things you can control, stop worrying, start planning and do something about them, otherwise you have no one but yourself to blame.

Live simply – Living simply is about making sure your actions burn clean, that you don’t leave residue after you leave a situation or a relationship. This involves thinking before you act about the implications of your actions.

Give more – This has been a consistent theme for the Ministry of Happiness, the more you give, the more comes back to you, altruism is a two-sided gift.

Expect less – lower your expectations in life, this doesn’t ever mean you should get less than you deserve, but you shouldn’t always expect everyone and everything to come out right all of the time. Lowering your expectations to a more realistic level will make those times when everything goes right, even more sweet.

Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

The Ministry of Happiness

Happiness & Cynicism

Happiness & Cynicism

More posts on how to be happy!

Happiness and Children

Happiness and Children

More on Happiness from the Ministry of Happiness!

Happiness and not being happy

Happy Holiday, Easter, or whatever you celebrate

Happy Holiday, Easter, or whatever you celebrate

Happiness Rankings Worldwide

Happiness, Communication, and Simplicity

Happiness, Communication, and Simplicity

More Happiness Posts You Might Enjoy!

Sometimes it’s not about Happiness

Happiness Resources: The Components of Happiness

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Happiness and the best day of your life

Happiness is simplicity

Happiness is Simplicity

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

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