A quick and light moment on film with the Dalai Lama, even the best of us can be interrupted on the path, even if it’s just by a mosquito.
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Dalai Lama: Mosquito interrupted Happiness
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Happiness and harsh words
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~Marcel Proust
Sometimes this world is hard and the people around us make it even harder. We often don’t understand how our words impact other people. Particularly when writing online, people use the veil of their relative anonymity to do things they would not do. This can mean a lot of things, people can be bolder and braver, they might be a whole lot naughtier, but often it seems they are less considerate and a lot meaner than they would normally be. Now I’m not advocating that we all become thin-skinned members of the politically correct crowd. We shouldn’t and we should be comfortable enough with ourselves to overlook the stupidity of others.
What instead I’m asking is for all of us to consider today, is the happiness of others. It seems to me both online, on the highway, and in everyday life in many ways people seem to be unaware of the impact of their actions on others. So today in our quest to lead a happier life, let’s take time to consider the happiness of others. And in that vein I have a homework assignment for all of you, today go out and do one thing to make someone happier. Have you been meaning to call an old friend? Have you told your mother you loved her lately, maybe even your dad? When’s the last time you broke down and let the kids order pizza for dinner? Hell, even be cliché and help an old lady cross the street or check in on a neighbor and just say hi, thank a friend for having been there for you, or treat the office to cupcakes.
For my part and to start this happy little ball rolling, mom I love you, have a happy day my friends.
Posted in personal happiness
Tagged happiness, harsh, hurtful, life, online, personal happiness, philosophy, words
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Happiness and writing away the darkness
Happiness and writing away the darkness
An update to a piece from a couple of years ago ~ Rev Kane
Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence. ~ Jeanette Winterson
Something most people who know me don’t know, even some who know me quite well, is that I suffer from bouts of depression. Very rarely have these dips, as I refer to them, ever had a significant impact on my life, they are not debilitating and I’m grateful for that. I have friends who suffer from significant bouts of depression and my heart goes out to them. It is hard to explain to anyone who has never dealt with this to understand the weight the darkness can have on you, how all-encompassing it can be, no matter how bright the light or how wonderful your life or the people in it.
For me, when I was in my early twenties, I discovered a need to write. Now, over twenty plus years later writing has become an integral part of my life. It has been a tool by which I have expressed joy, dealt with sadness and death, and even publicly worked to help people bring more happiness into their life. I am happy to say that writing has also helped me with my dips. Today, and this is often how it happens, for no reason at all my mood turned. There was no specific act, no tragedy, nothing you could put your finger on but it happened. As night fell, I sat down to eat dinner and watch some television and eventually turned to my laptop to write. The words left my body and expressed my mood and happily took much of the negative energy with them. Writing this right now I feel better than I have all day, this is no magic bullet, I’m not joyous and smiling, but I’m much better than I was earlier and I hold out the hope that the morning will bring the sun , a new day and a new attitude.
For those of you who may have similar issues I hope you can find similar mechanisms to drain the negativity. If you’ve never tried writing, either prose , poetry or journaling, give it a try, maybe it will work for you as well, if not find another way. Recently I have changed the way I journal to focus on three questions:
- What was the most beautiful thing I saw today?
- What did I learn today?
- What made me happy today?
The beauty of these questions is that if you answer them each day, at the end of the day they will remind you that there is beauty, learning and happiness each day. And if you start to answer them every day you will begin to focus on the beauty, learning and happiness that occurs during each day, give it a try my friends.
As for resources the links below will guide you to some basic and simple things that can help keep you out of the dips, they have helped me in the past and continue to:
10 Natural Depression Treatments
Eight ways to Actively Fight Depression
Finally I’ll share the piece I wrote tonight, and friends, I’m doing fine, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Ephemeral Tendrils 3/27/11
And the world turns sad tonight
there is no rhyme or reason to it
the ephemeral tendrils
of what it is to be connected
drift from my grasp
Finding myself adrift
edge to edge and off the ledge
floating into nothing
grasping
for what I do not know
In my mind this night
forsaking all hope of connection
life grows hopeless, inane
there is no point
no direction, no hope
No attachment fits
not love or friendship
no contact here
just me and these keys
total lack of solace in this night
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Posted in personal happiness
Tagged blog, blues, depression, happiness, life, moods, personal happiness, philosophy, poetry, writing
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Happiness and Independence
Below is a piece from Deng Ming-Dao’s 365 Day Tao and is on Independence. How are happiness and independence related? In our lives, as social creatures, we need other human beings. Being around other people can make us feel safe and loved and provide us with support mechanisms that can make us happy. However, in order to be truly happy we have to be like the crane in the piece below. We have to be content with ourselves and understand that we don’t need wealth, or status or popularity to be happy. All we need is to understand and love ourselves, in the end everything else is a luxury including other people and those relationships. Now this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t engage others, as I’ve said below, we all need other people, but first, you have to engage and love yourself. Have a truly happy day.
A solitary Crane
In winter snow
Needs no jewels
A single crane standing unconcerned in the falling snow is the very image of independence. It needs no one, it is secure in its environment, and it is capable of going through life alone. Its independence stems from self-sufficiency.
It needs no clothing, no building, no wealth, no status. It is content, even glorious in its naked identity. So too with ourselves: There is no need for dazzling clothes, an impressive career, an awesome temple, nor a bejeweled master. What we want is something beyond such externals.
What facets of your personality are encumbrances? What personal aspects prevent you from being independent? These are the areas that will define your self-cultivation, for you must strive to stand alone. This doesn’t mean that you won’t ever join with others, but you will do so as an individual who will cooperate just as much as is necessary. In this way, you will never be lost in a group, and you will never fear being alone.
Posted in Deng Ming-Dao, personal happiness
Tagged blogs, deng ming-dao, happiness, independence, life, personal happiness, philosophy, spirituality
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Happiness and Disappointment
Happiness and Disappointment
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. ~ Winston Churchill
Things go wrong, or at least not the way you want them to, this is just a fact of life. For most of us, when something goes wrong we indulge ourselves to try to make ourselves feel better. Some of us drink, some of us shop, a lot of us, including me, turn to comfort food. For me that is a large New York style pizza and a very large Coke. Unfortunately for some us, and even myself in the past, we often turn to even more destructive behaviors. Most of what we do is designed to make us feel good in the moment, to take our mind away from what is making us unhappy.
Today I’m writing to propose a new way, an experiment if you will that I am personally conducting for myself. Let’s all take a longer range vision and stop being so focused on how you feel in this moment, and think about how you’ll feel tomorrow or next week. Instead of trying not to feel unhappy in the moment let’s work on being happier in the long run. Often when we sit down on the couch after bad news or disappointment and plunge our spoons into the half-gallon of NY Super Fudge Chunk ice cream, we find that we feel terrible about it the next day. It is even more evident for those who drink and wake up the next morning to a pounding head and unstable stomach.
So instead of feeling bad the next day, let’s try and feel good next week. So today, instead of heading out after work and buying a large pizza and a very large bottle of Coke, I’m trying something new. So this morning I brought in a present to my office, Girl Scout cookies, thin mints to be exact, for them, not me to enjoy although I’ll have to sneak one or two. At lunch I’m heading out to a salad and soup place and if I weren’t hobbling around on a busted foot at the moment it would absolutely be a gym night. Instead tonight, I’ll see a movie and then focus on my meditation.
Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll wake up feeling better, time away from a disappointment often allows for that, and feel even better, even happier for having done some positive things today. I’ll let you know how it turns out, have a happy day my friends.
The greatest happiness is to transform one’s feelings into action. ~ Madame de Stael
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Tagged churchill, comfort food, difficulties, disappointment, happiness, happy, hard times, life, personal happiness, philosophy, tragedy
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Happiness, Action and Experience
Happiness, Action & Experience
Rev Kane at Mardi Gras in Mobile, AL
People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost. ~H. Jackson Browne
Today I’d like to talk about experience and happiness. We can talk about how we can be happier, the actions we need to take, even how our thoughts can drive our actions. But in the end we have to take action on our thoughts in order to make ourselves happier. In the past we have talked about being grateful for what we have but that is not enough, how have you shown your gratitude? We have talked about pushing those who are negative out of your life, but what have you done to make this happen? Our actions truly do speak louder than words, but taking action isn’t easy. How do you get the strength to take the actions you need to so that you can be happier?
The most common way is necessity, when something is so horrible that you can no longer abide it, you’ll do what you have to do to make the situation better. However most of us are not in that position, we are trying to be happier and if we don’t take action we’ll just be less happy. To me the best way to gain the strength to make changes is through experience and particularly through travel.
Traveling is a way to encounter different cultures and be exposed to a different way of thinking. I have been very fortunate in my life to have traveled globally, to have seen cultures in South and Central America and Asia, but it isn’t necessary to travel abroad. Having been to all 50 states and having lived in several of them, I can tell you that just traveling around this magnificent country can get you the experience you need.
New experiences give us a new way to see how things are done, a new way to think about the world. Showing us that difference and therefore change is possible, have a happy day my friends.
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour. ~Author Unknown
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Fear is Killing Your Happiness
Our Best Happiness Posts of 2015
Posted in personal happiness
Tagged experience, grateful, gratitude, happiness, happy, life, personal happiness, philosophy, travel
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The Dalai Lama on Happiness and Annoyance
It is clear that inner peace is the principal cause of happiness. We can observe this in our daily lives. On days when we are calm and happy, even if difficulties arise or we fall victim to a mishap, we take it well, it doesn’t bother us unduly. But on days when we feel sad or have lost our usual calmness, the least little annoyance will take on enormous proportions and be deeply upsetting to us. ~Dalai Lama
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Happiness and a fork in the road
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu
So we all have plans and I learned many years ago that my plans never work out in ways that I expect. So I plan with an eye to the fact that my plans are really and truly only setting a direction not a destination. Over the years I never planned to be an administrator and now, here I am with ten years under my belt as an academic administrator. I never planned to be in my mid-40’s, single and childless but here I am, I did plan to be filthy rich by now and well, I’m not.
We have all heard the expression that it’s not the destination, but the journey that matters. Well, if we want to be happy, we have to live by this expression. We all plan, very rarely do these plans come out exactly the way we plan them to, so if our happiness only depends on reaching a destination and we don’t get there, then we’ll be unhappy. However if we decide to experience the journey and draw our happiness from it, then we can be happy along the way no matter what destination we reach.
So my plans have not worked out as I expected, but I have an amazing life. I may not have ever married or had children, but because my life is relatively unfettered I’ve traveled around the world and had the most amazing experiences. I was able to take off of work for eight months last year and travel to Europe, Asia and across America. I never planned on being an administrator but am currently on the edge of an opportunity as an administrator that may lead to a very lucrative job in Shanghai. That opportunity will be a significant fork in the road and decisions of this magnitude are always intimidating and filled with stress. However, whichever fork I choose, I sure it will be a heck of a trip and I’ll be smiling all the way.
So today’s message is pretty obvious, stop worrying about the destination, take a moment and understand the journey you’re on and enjoy it. Have a happy day my friends.
Posted in personal happiness
Tagged blogs, decisions, happiness, journey, life, philosophy, planning
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A quickie but a goody
A friend of mine posted this link to Facebook today and I thought it was a nice quick reminder of the types of things we’ve been talking about, enjoy and have a happy day
http://www.theinspirationtree.com/2011/01/pursuit-of-happiness-15-lessons-to-keep.html#comment-form
Posted in happiness resources, personal happiness
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The Dalai Lama on Anger
Feelings of anger and hatred arise from a mind that is troubled by dissatisfaction and discontent. So you can prepare to deal with such occasions by constantly working to build inner contentment and by cultivating kindness and compassion. This brings about a certain calmness of mind that can help prevent anger from arising in the first place. ~ Dalai Lama
Posted in Dalai Lama
Tagged anger, blogs, dalai lama, dissatisfaction, happiness, hatred, life, ministry, personal, philosophy, spirituality, writing
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The Ministry of Happiness 