So sometimes talking about how to be happy and all of the things we need to do can be a bit heavy and sometimes you just need to laugh, the link below should help you with that, be happy.
http://zdeaconblue.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/fun-friday-laughing-babies/
Our life is the sum total of all the decisions we make every day, and those decisions are determined by our priorities. ~ Myles Munroe
Lately I’ve been having a tough time of it, trying to get my head around what’s next in my career? I’ve hit that point in my current job where I’m bored, nothing is really a surprise or exciting, there don’t seem to be any challenges left, at least none that the organization is willing to take and status quo is starting to seem like our motto. Luckily I was able to take about two weeks off and relax, first in Las Vegas for a few days and then out in Arizona with my brother for our annual brother’s weekend. The time off was good and not so scheduled that I didn’t have time to sit and think and make some career decisions. This is the first bit of wisdom I’d like to impart today, when you have a question to answer or a problem to solve don’t underestimate the value of just taking time to clear your head and think.
Needless to say when you’re struggling, you are not the happiest of souls and I was struggling with this as well. I mean hey, I write a blog on happiness, so staying happy, finding ways out of a little well is sort of necessary or I’m not much of a guide am I? The trip was immensely helpful on that front as well, spending time with my brother, who lives across the country, is a rare and precious gift and that always makes me happy.
On the last morning of our vacation as we headed out to take my brother to the airport we stopped at Denny’s in Fountain Hills for breakfast. Now personally, I can’t imagine working the Sunday morning shift at a Denny’s is much fun and so I’ve always made a certain allowance for someone not being real bubbly as a server at that time of the day. However, to my surprise as we sat down at the counter our server came up to us, blasted us a huge smile and asked us how we were doing on this wonderful morning? I have to admit my first thought was she was still high from the night before. However, she was great, a beautiful young with woman with star tattoos on her neck and an amazing smile. She looked a bit like Jessica Biel and her positive attitude persisted throughout our time there.
Now granted, she’s not a nurse in a war zone or a protestor in the streets of Libya, but early morning shifts at Denny’s serving picky seniors and grouchy people at Denny’s while surviving on tips is not likely to make you giddy. But she had made a choice to be happy, to smile and spread that joy and I’m guessing from the brief conversation we had, it’s a choice she makes every day, no matter where she is and what she’s doing. So today I put her up as our model for how we can move forward and be happier and this post is my personal thanks to her for sharing that attitude, have a happy day friends. ~ Rev Kane
Fear is Killing Your Happiness
Our Best Happiness Posts of 2015
Through constant familiarity, we can definitely establish new behavior patterns, using our tendency to form habits to our advantage. If we make a steady effort, I think we can overcome any form of negative conditioning and make positive changes in our lives. But we need to remember that genuine change doesn’t happen overnight ~ Dalai Lama
Happiness is a form of courage. ~Holbrook Jackson
Happiness at some level is a luxury. What do I mean by that? Well it comes back to one of my favorite concepts of all-time, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The concept is beautiful for its simplicity, basically the idea is that you have to meet your most basic needs before moving on to things that are optional, like happiness, environmentalism or spirituality. Those things are secondary if your kids are hungry. One of the most basic things that human beings need is to feel safe and it is the second level of the hierarchy. So the question today is, do you feel safe?
If not, what is it in your world that threatens you? Is it something you can change? If you can, you should make it a priority, taking care of yourself and your well-being is one of the first steps to being happy. Remember that the things that threaten you are not always physical threats and most likely are psychological in nature. People who are overly critical or not responsive of your needs can be just as damaging to your feeling of safety. In the end, feeling safe means you can feel comfortable to let your guard down both physically and psychologically.
What got me thinking about this today was that I was fortunate to wake up this morning at a hotel on the beach. Laying there in my warm bed, listening to the waves I was hit with this incredibly feeling of safety, I haven’t been feeling very safe in my world lately and the feeling this morning was wonderful and inspired this post and the following poem, enjoy.
Safe (written in Monterey, CA – 2/19/11)
I feel safe here
warm in my bed
sound of waves
breaking on shore
regular as heartbeats
kissing the land
A reminder
the original safe place
warm
wet
well-fed
regular heartbeats
the meaning of safety
before words or language
Fear is Killing Your Happiness
Our Best Happiness Posts of 2015
It is very important to value all religious systems. Although they may have great philosophical differences, they all have precepts for cultivating a good attitude toward others and helping them. They all counsel the practice of love, compassion, patience, contentment, and observing society’s rules. Since all religions share these goals, it is important to respect them and to value the contribution they can make.~Dalai Lama
My weekly post this week was on worry and as a nice companion here is my daily meditation from Deng Ming-Dao’s 365 Tao on the same subject.
Worry is an addiction
That interferes with compassion
Worry is a problem that seems to be rampant. Perhaps it is due to the nature of our overly advanced civilization; perhaps it is a measure of our own spiritual degneracy. Whatever the source, it is clear that worry is not useful. It is a cancer of the emotions-concern gone compulsive. It eats away at the body and the mind.
It does no good to say, “Don’t think about it.” You’ll only worry more. It is far better to keep walking your path, changing what you can. The rest must be dissolved in compassion. In this world of infants with immunce deficiencies, racial injustice, economic imbalance, personal violence, and international conflict, it is impossible to address everyone’s concerns. Taking care of yourself and doing something good for those whom you meet is enough. That is compassion, and we must exercise it even in the face of the overwhelming odds.
Whenever you meet a problem, help it if is in your power to do so. After you have acted, withdraw and be unconcerned about it. Walk on without ever mentioning it to anybody. There there is no worry, because there has been action.
I feel that an individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune that one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace – anxiety, doubt, disappointment – these are definitely less. ~ Dalai Lama
So, on my other blog I’ve been posting a travelogue about my trip to the Himalayas last year as part of the 8 months I took off of work, I’ll talk more about that soon in a post. But my posting this week, part 11 of the travelogue is one of my favorite points and includes some of my favorite photos from the trip. Have a look when you’ve got a few free minutes:
Hey friends, from my other blog, I thought I would link this over concerning how poorly I think this company treated Tibetans, Buddhists and the Dalai Lama:
http://zdeaconblue.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/insensitive-groupon-tibet-super-bowl-ad/
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, and honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ~ Leo F. Buscaglia
So I’m a Steeler fan, c’mon you didn’t think you’d completely escape the Super Bowl on the Monday after the game did you? Well, my team lost and worse they beat themselves, so as I’m writing this I’m a bit grumpy. However, what is important is that by tomorrow my brain will have readjusted to the reality that it’s just a game and I’ll be back to normal. And how do you get there, well, the first and easiest step is just to smile. Smiling has an amazing range of impacts and I meant to write about that today until I found an absolutely amazing piece about smiling on the web, I think the article is absolutely perfect and here it is, The Art of Smiling.
A natural flow from smiling is to be positive, remember that smiling, being positive and in the end being happy is a choice. You choose to decide whether your boss’ attitude, your team losing, or even the other driver in traffic is going to set you off, or if you decide to let it go and not let it disrupt your happiness. From the piece linked below here are some fantastic tips:
Hints and tips on becoming more positive
The piece this came from is called, Being Positive. have a happy day my friends and remember, happiness is a choice, choose to have a great day. ~ Rev Kane
The Ministry of Happiness 