The Ministry of Happiness

Happiness and Being Special

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Michael Kane

Happiness and Being Special

Originally posted 2014

A few nights ago I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Bill Clinton. This was the first time I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a former US President speak and I was fortunate to have good seats. The things I noticed about President Clinton were first, he has lost a lot of weight since he has left office, and second, Bill Clinton is a brilliant, brilliant man. He made a lot of interesting observations about politics, our current fiscal cliff situation and told some great stories. However there was one thing that he said that really hit home.

When asked a question about the most influential person in his life, Bill Clinton wandered through the answer the moderator wanted talking about several of the famous political figures in his life. However at the end of the answer, and with Clinton that takes a while, he got to a very important point. What President Clinton said was the one thing all successful people have in common, is that someone, at some point in their life, made them feel like they were the most special person in the world.

I thought about this for a time last night and it’s similar to another question that I have contemplated before in my life. Where does my confidence come from, what was it in my life that helped me overcome what weren’t the best starting circumstances. Well quite simply, for a time in my life I had a couple of people who made me feel like the most special little kid on Earth. When I was very young between ages 2 and 4 I had two grandparents who I called POW and Granny, who treated me like the sun rose and set on my command. Sure, they were spoiling me, I was their first grandchild. Unfortunately my grandfather would die shortly after my 5^th birthday but for a time these people put me on a pedestal. My Granny continued to make me feel this way for the rest of her life, so I owe them and especially her that debt and I told her so on more than one occasion.

So today my friends, think about someone who might have done this for you, thank them. If possible, pay this forward, find some young kid somewhere in your life. It doesn’t have to be your child, or a relative even, it doesn’t have to something magnanimous. Clinton told another story to illustrate this point, the story centered on three brothers in a family. One of the brothers became a medical doctor, his two brothers went to prison. When a study of these men was undertaken to figure out what factor made the difference between the three brothers, they found one thing. For the youngest brother, the doctor, there was a daily interaction he had that had no parallel in the other brother’s lives. Each day on the way to school, a guy who ran a local newsstand would stop him, and ask him what his plans for the day were. In the afternoon he’d stop him again, ask about his homework and check to see if it was done in the morning. He was not a relative, not really a proper friend even, but he was someone who made that young man feel that he, and what he was doing in school was important and that was enough. So make some young person feel important, you may be doing much, much more than you can imagine to make that person successful, happy and impacting the happiness of all of us.

Equally as importantly, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Voices from the Past

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Michael Kane

Voices from the past

My POW and I in 1966

Originally posted Oct, 2018

The most beautiful things are not associated with money; they are memories and moments. If you don’t celebrate those, they can pass you by. ~ Alek Wek

My maternal grandfather and I had a special relationship right from the start, the advantage I think of being the first grandchild. As my late granny often said, “your diapers were the only ones he ever change, never touched his own kids, but you were special.” He doted on me, played with me and paid a huge amount of attention to me. Naturally, we became close, very close and one of the little games he used to play with me when I was a baby was to make a fist and go “pow” when his fist touched me and I would laugh. So as I started to speak I would say “pow” every time he came near and over time would come to call him Pow it became his family name. I would hang out with him in his workshop, he’d take me for walks and most famously we would drink together. Pow, with his mug of beer and me with a shot glass of milk. We would slam back a drink and then I would yell, “more beer Pow!” There is family famous a shot of the four year-old me and my Pow drinking at the kitchen table in my grandparents kitchen. They occupied the first two floors of the house and my parents, myself and little sister lived on the third floor.

Although I was only five years old when my grandfather passed away, I have some specific memories of my time with him. Once when I was in the hospital, I was frequently sick as a child, I remember waking up to find him and his best friend, my great uncle Joe sitting by my bedside. I remember vividly that they brought me a bag of cowboys and Indians, very exciting as the cowboys actually sat on the little plastic horses. I even remember sitting at the table with him drinking “beer” and at times over the years while growing up would from time to time mention details about him that would surprise my family that I remembered.

Several years after my paternal grandfather passed away I remembered some cassette tapes I had of recordings I had made of him and I talking when he was in his late 80’s. At Christmas one year I had the cassettes turned into CDs and made copies for members of my family. The effect was amazing, it made me realize something about remembering the dead. We tell stories, we have photographs so we remember what people did, we remember what they look like, but we most often don’t have any recordings of their voices, so we forget what they sounded like. The most frequent comment I got from family members was oh my god, I forgot about his laugh. He had a great rolling laugh.

My paternal grandfather

The success of that gift got me thinking about something I had remembered. My grandfather and great uncle Joe had traded audio tapes back in the early 60s, including exchanging messages with my uncle stationed in Vietnam. My great uncle had recently passed away and my granny was going to be with his wife, her sister, and help her go through his things and take care of the estate. I asked my granny to send me any tapes she might find, these were the old reel to reel recording tapes. She said she had found some and sent them to me. Unfortunately, these turned out to be old 16mm films, some innocuous, some quite racy.

A few years later my great aunt passed away and once again I asked my granny as she went to take care of the estate to look again. Once again I was told there were nothing and I gave up hope. When about a month later a box arrived, full of reel to reel tapes. The box was a random collection of blank tapes, club tapes of comedy acts and commercial comedy tapes of people like Bill Cosby. And of course, the gold, the mailed tapes between family members including between my grandfather and my great uncle.

I sorted through the tapes and with no reel to reel player available I sent the tapes to be converted to CD by a company. When I received the CDs I was excited to click through and listed to the files. It was awesome to hear the voices of my grandfather, gone for 30 years, to hear my late, great uncle Joe and even my granny when she was much younger. Then the bigger shocker, on a tape from my grandfather to my great uncle Joe I hear him yell, “Michael, get over here.” Then there it was, the voice of little three year-old little me, saying hello to my uncle Joe. It was a difficult and wonderful moment, a moment, I had no memory of, but a moment when I was so young, so pure, so loved. I could hear the love between me and my POW, so many years in the past. It brought tears to my eyes, like it does now, it shows the absolute power of voices from the past. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged blog, death, family, happiness, memories, memory, remember, the past | 3 Comments

Yes you can, be happy!

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Michael Kane

Yes you can, be happy!

Originally published 12/2018

Each fresh peak ascended teaches something. ~ Sir Martin Convay

As I wrote about last week I’ve been struggling a bit lately. I’m someone, like a lot of you, whose mood sometimes just tanks. When I was younger this would lead to some pretty serious depression. It was part of the impetus for the start of the Ministry of Happiness, once I’d done some research on how to be happier, I needed a way to share it with others and the blog was born.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot of techniques to help myself when this happens. You start with the basics, you eat right, exercise, get the right amount of sleep. For me writing also helps, unfortunately over the last couple of weeks I have been wholly uninspired on that front. You look for any stressors and if they can be dealt with you do that. If they can’t be dealt with, than you don’t have control over them and you have to let them go as best you can. So over the last couple of the weeks I’ve been working on all of this and my mood still hadn’t elevated at all.

At least until yesterday.

Over the last few years writing this blog I’ve really come to believe that happiness only comes through action. Sure, most of the time the basics will keep you level and bring you up if your mood dips. But to get happier or to recover from the bigger dips you have to take action. Sometimes that action relates to a specific problem in your life, but often, there isn’t a clear problem that’s effecting your mood. Many times it’s a bunch of the small things, what I like to call death by paper cuts. Lots of small wounds that bleed your mood, this has been what the last few weeks has felt like.

When I do talks about my book Appalachian Trail Happiness and my time on the Appalachian Trail I relate a very specific message from the wrap up section of the book. That message is Yes you can! Specifically what that message means is yes you can take action. Yes you can go on adventures. The expectation isn’t that you do some of the things I do, although you can! You don’t have to go to Nepal and hike in the Himalayas, or travel to Canada and photograph Polar Bears or hike the Appalachian Trial. What you can do, is do something. You can go for a walk on a local park trail, want to ramp it up, go at night! I assure you there are lots of hikes, art galleries and a whole list of adventures within an hour of your house, all you have to do is look for them.

As a hiker, and someone gearing up to backpack Havasu Falls in four weeks, I decided this weekend to go for a hike. The Pacific Crest Trail crosses Walker Pass about 20 miles from my house and so this Saturday I decided to go out and do a few hours on the trail. Heading north out of the pass is a good walk, it’s basically an uphill run with a solid elevation gain of about a thousand feet over 3-4 miles. So a nice three-hour out and back hike gives you an eight mile hike up over 5000 feet. Nice training for the 10 miles I’ll do into and out of Havasu Falls.

Havasu Falls

One of the things that I’ve been experiencing lately is feeling completely scattered, like I’m moving in a million directions at once. Hiking is a beautiful cure for that situation, at least while you’re on the trail. Hiking brings focus and mindfulness when you’re on the trail. You have to be in the moment or you find yourself face down on the ground. And although you’re focused on your steps, it allows just enough to space for your brain to go deep on one thing at a time. Hiking let’s me take some deep dives, get some perspective and see things in ways I don’t in everyday life. It helps me declutter my brain, throw away some of the things I shouldn’t be worrying about and put my focus in the right place. That’s what Saturday did for me, it was a beautiful sunny day, windy and a little chilly but once I was climbing it felt good. I ran into a family hiking, I always love seeing munchkin hikers on the trail. One little girl was particularly adorable with her Dora the Explorer backpack and tiny trekking poles.

I took a little break to eat up on one of the saddles I crossed and ate looking over a couple of valleys with snow in the upper elevations. On the trail, even for a day the world gets calm and simpler and I can’t help but feel good. The beauty of this feeling is that it extends past the time on the trail. I head into a new workweek in a better place than I’ve been over the last couple of weeks and my training plan includes being back in the mountains this weekend and each of the weekends leading up to my trip in April.

Shots from Walker Pass this weekend on the PCT

So if you’re in the same place my friends, yes, you can do the same thing I did. Maybe not in the same way, but a little adventure, a little nature and hopefully you’ll have a happier day. ~ Rev Kane

My COVID Times Diary – Silver Lining

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Michael Kane

My COVID Times Diary – Silver Lining

Behind every silver lining, there’s a cloud. ~ Glenn Gould

originally posted 7/7/2020

So I’ll be honest, I’ve really hated all the advertising during the pandemic. All of the ads from companies telling us how they are with us, how they care. The donations they are making are good, but honestly billion dollar companies giving a couple of million dollars doesn’t impress me, I’m happy they’re doing it but it doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy about them. I’ve appreciated the really honest ones, Lays did an ad that basically said, this all sucks but eating chips makes you feel better. I bought a bag that night. One ad that I saw, and honestly I forget what for, had one teen talking about how his family has been eating dinner together every night.

So it got me thinking, there are very, very few things that have no positive attributes. So what are the silver linings of the pandemic? The first and a snarky answer is that in many ways it’s an introverts paradise. I was talking with another introvert a couple of weeks ago about how it’s nice that people are avoiding us, normally that’s our job. But on a more serious note, for the last twenty years we have been hearing about the promise of the paperless office. The fact is, we’ve had the technology to do this for years, but people are resistant to change, and don’t trust technology. So they keep backup hard files, create paper copies that they then scan into PDFs instead of just creating PDFs in the first place. Offices have refused to take electronic signatures, demanding wet signatures on hard copies. Well, with all of us working from home and no longer able to walk paper copies around offices and campuses, we’ve had to make the move. It has certainly been painful, people don’t have the type of technical know how we think they do, mostly because we haven’t made them get proficient. But now we’re there and I’m happy as hell about it, once we get people up to proficiency and they get into the routine and rhythm of it all, things will be much better.

For me personally at home, working from home, I’m able to be much healthier. This situation has allowed me to routinely practice intermittent fasting. Which means me for me, fasting for 16 hours a day, and eating in an eight hour window. Without drive times or gyms, I’ve been working out at home and it’s been easier to get into a routine and be far more consistent. Without treadmill access I started running in March, something I truly hate, but is necessary for me to get my cardio levels up and keep my blood pressure down. Since we’ve started this work at home experiment I’ve lost five pounds and dropped my very bad glucose levels down 70 points. So this work at home thing is actually good for me.

I put a request out to friends tonight on Facebook to see what other silver linings they are seeing. Their answers were interesting and all over the place. There were some of the bigger things environmental improvement, more awareness of issues. Some not so big things as well, catching up on Netflix shows, organizing houses and closets, learning how to cook or cook new things. Some of the expected things showed up including time with family, eating dinner together and time to play with kids. Lots of discussion of new skills or picking up old habits, learning a new language.

The two that I thought were the most significant involved connection and pace of life. People talked about connecting to family across the country via Zoom, I actually got to watch my niece’s high school graduation via Zoom. One friend said that a group of college friends had reconnected over a Zoom book club and were in better touch than they had been for years. A number of people talked about slowing down, seeing life at a slower pace, something I’ve advocated for on this blog in several posts.

So, even in the middle of a terrible pandemic, just in America over 125,000 people have died, millions who have been ill, there are still silver linings. Hope you have found a few for yourself. ~ Michael ‘Rev’ Kane

Posted in Life in Covid Times | Tagged coronavirus, covid life, covid times, covid-19, family, pandemic, silver linings | Leave a comment

Everybody is just winging it!

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Michael Kane

Everybody is just winging it!

Originally posted April, 2020

There are no grown-ups. We suspect this when we are younger, but can confirm it only once we are the ones writing books and attending parent-teacher conferences. Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently. ~ Pamela Druckerman

There’s a conversation I often have with students and I had it again recently and so I thought I would share it with you tonight. One of the things students often freak out about, particularly as they are about to graduate or transfer, is whether or not they are truly ready. You see they look around at all of the professionals they encounter in their life, all of these confident and competent looking people. They see people making decisions and moving forward and they think, my god, I have no idea how they are doing that. We’ve all had a similar feeling on the first day of work at a new job. There is always that moment at some point the first day where you’re sitting at a desk thinking, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing.

The secret I let the students in on, the one they never believe, is that all of these folks are just winging it. Sure, after being in a job for a few years you know damn near everything there is to know about your job. But new things always happen, your responsibilities change, however in that first week, first month, first year we all feel a bit like frauds. It’s one of the reasons people are so afraid to get out of their comfort zones, they don’t want to look like they don’t know what they are doing. People in general are terrified of looking bad in front of other people.

One thing to keep in mind my friends is that this reality applies not just to our jobs. With our family, our friend in almost every way in everyday life we’re all just winging it. There was no manual to how to get through puberty, how to date or even how to be a parent. Sure we call on friends, family those who have gone before us, but in the end, we’re all just winging it. And you know what, that’s just fine, it’s a core part of being human. So don’t worry about it, don’t stress over it and just relax, do the best you can and have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

We all need a little adventure

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Michael Kane

We all need a little adventure

I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type. ~ Bob Dylan

So, on March 12th, the campus where I work closed down as we started our local shelter in place order here in the Bay Area of California. Having every aspect of my job go upside down turned into a very intense eleven weeks of long hours, planning and lots of meetings while we redesigned the way we do everything we do. I got significantly burned out around about week eight and my boss suggested I take a vacation. That was not possible at the time and quite frankly through tired eyes I didn’t see a way that would be possible for some time to come. I set my sights on mid-July and in fact I’ve been able to pull it off a bit earlier than I thought possible.

That’s right, I’m very excited to be taking a tiny vacation next week. I fully understand people’s frustration given our current situation and being a nomad who frequently travels I’ve been jonesing to get back on the road. I’d originally planned a trip to Las Vegas on March 19th, as things started to get bad with the coronavirus, I cancelled it out of caution over what things would be like in Las Vegas. So it’s been a solid four months since I’ve ventured too far from home.

So I’m heading to Nevada, not Las Vegas, but Reno. I’ll spend two days at the Silver Legacy, and carefully do a little gambling in the early morning when the casino is usually pretty empty. I’m also purposefully going after the Fourth of July weekend when I know crowds will be smaller. My main purpose for the trip is to do a little photography. A safe solo activity that I really enjoy. I plan to go down to Virginia and Silver Cities to photograph the cemeteries there. On the way back west I plan on spending the day at Sand Harbor Beach in Lake Tahoe. Finally a night in Sacramento and back home. So all in all it’s only a three day trip but a road trip none the less, and given how things are going with the coronavirus, it might well be a another four months before I get to take another one.

So the point for tonight’s post is two-fold. We all need to do what we need for our sanity, and to make ourselves happy. Of course, we need to do it in a safe and socially responsible way. So whatever it is, wear your mask, wash your hands and where possible, stay out of crowds and have a happy day my friend. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in Life in Covid Times, personal happiness | Tagged casinos, happiness, nomad, reno, road trip, vacation | 2 Comments

Happiness is Honesty, Simplicity & Gratitude

Posted on July 5, 2020 by Michael Kane

Happiness is Simplicity

A roadmap to more happiness

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning. ~ Lao Tzu

So lately the following image has been flying around on social networking sites. There is some real wisdom in this simple little sign and it’s about honesty, simplicity and gratitude. We talk a lot here at the Ministry of Happiness about simplifying your life because complexity often leads to difficulty and problems which reduce our happiness. Being grateful is something that allows you to have a more positive perspective on life and honesty will quite simply help you cut the through the bullshit of life. As the sign says, if you miss someone contact them, it constantly amazes me how this simple bit of logic alludes us all at times. All too often we sit around and wonder if someone we care about is unhappy or upset with us, but we don’t ask. So many times when you ask that question you find out how imperfect communication is between people.

I am perhaps more keenly aware of this than others because I have always been a bit of a gypsy. As a result, my friends and loved ones are often at a distance from me and I have to rely a lot less than other people do on the comfort of face-to-face interactions. I can’t tell you how many times I have been misinterpreted or misinterpreted what was written in an e-mail or letter. A quick phone call can create confusion between people because the other person is distracted on the other end of the line, no form of communication is perfect until we evolve to communicate mind-to-mind.

The answer is to just be as open and honest as you can possibly be, the people who really care about you will receive this better than you might imagine. Be simple, take the easiest straightest path to the things you want and need in your pursuit of happiness. Be grateful for what and who you have in your life, and for the opportunities this life presents us all. Finally, as always, have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged blog, gratitude, happiness, honesty, life, philosophy, self-improvement, simplicity | 2 Comments

Thoughtful Happiness Quotes

Posted on July 4, 2020 by Michael Kane

Thoughtful Happiness Quotes

Tonight a set of quotes to get you thinking, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

It’s about constructing your own reality

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Michael Kane

It’s about constructing your own reality

You must take responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the weather or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. ~ Jim Rohn

Originally posted 05/2019

It’s funny how ideas come to me for the blog each week. Sometimes I sit down and dream and think and dig out an idea like digging a tick out of your dogs back. Sometimes I google happiness and look for something to write about. A lot of times though, something happens in my life and that thing resonates and like a kernel or seed begins to germinate and grows into something to write about. Tonight’s posts is one of the more esoteric forms of this phenomenon.

I remember the idea coming to me, but exactly where it came from is not so clear. Perhaps it popped out of something on Netflix or from the recent Douglas Adams’ book I’ve been reading. Perhaps it was embedded in something I encountered on a social media feed or an NPR podcast. I can’t quite put my finger on the source but the idea is clear and fundamental to our lives and our happiness. It’s a simple idea that is really wholly contained in the Jim Rohn quote above. In your life there are a lot of circumstances, a lot of them you can’t control. For instance, where and who you are born to is something you had no control or choice in. Those starting blocks inevitably lead you into certain circumstances in your life that are for the most part unalterable. The perfect analogy is a game of poker.

You are dealt the cards you are dealt, and to steal a quick quote from the Kenny Rogers “every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser.” Those unalterable circumstances are the cards you’re dealt. Sometimes in your life you’re dealt a royal flush, and I know a couple of people who were. Sometimes you’re dealt a really good hand and sometimes let’s face it, you’re dealt complete shit. The reality is that there is only one hand that can’t be beat in poker and that’s the royal flush. People dealt that hand never think about it, because they can never lose and they live their lives that way. But the rest of us at various times get various levels of good and bad hands. But because every other hand can be beat by something, there is always the possibility you have that hand, so no matter how good someone else’s hand is, a bluff can sometimes work with the worst of hands.

What that convoluted analogy boils down to is that although your circumstances may be terrible, there’s always a chance you can make it work out well. The real deciding factor in how good your hand (your circumstances) is ultimately, is how well you play it. YOU are the most important thing in this picture and your attitude, your expectations and your effort decide how good things can be. YOU create your life and you can make the most out of what you are given, or you can whine and cry and blame the circumstances of your life. Now I’m a realist and sure if you’re born into a poor and uneducated family, in a poor place, if you have societal disadvantages due to your appearance, ethnicity etc… you will not likely be as successful as someone born to wealthy parents in a rich area who is tall, healthy and beautiful.

But there are examples everywhere you look of people who bucked those odds. People you see, meet and read about every single day who have overcome bad hands. What’s special about these people? it comes down to a few of things:

Attitude

I don’t know if I can adequately express how important your attitude is to how successful and happy you will be. But I’ll give this example, you go through the grocery store checkout and the checker, never makes eye contact, doesn’t greet you, rings up the groceries then hands you the receipt without a word. The experience leaves you feeling a little out of sorts and unsatisfied. Let’s contrast that with my experience the other day in a store where that first experience is the norm. The cashier said hello, asked how my day was going and actually waited a beat for an answer. She smiled, she was engaging and thanked me when she handed me the receipt. It was so pleasant in fact that I complimented her on her attitude.

Now imagine, I’m in that line and I own a store or a company that has the need for a customer service related clerk. Her attitude might get her a job offer, it will certainly get her more pleasant responses from her customers. And that positivity loop makes work a better day for her, so she goes home in a better mood. That makes her experience with her family a bit easier and better. That simple feedback loop provides her with a happier life than she would otherwise have, and what did it take to get there? Effort.

Effort

Effort, this is where the personal responsibility in our life comes in. What started the positive feedback loop that person was on, was her effort. She decided to initiate it by making a conscious effort to encounter the world on a positive footing and that’s what she got back in return. You may have an incredibly talent, I have a nephew who has tremendous natural talent as a golfer. But that alone is not enough to become a professional golfer or get a golfing scholarship to college. If he wants those types of successes he needs effort and discipline. The talent is the cards you’re dealt, but if you fold, you don’t win. You have to take the step of extending the effort to put yourself into a better position. And what also really helps is to have positive expectations.

Expectations

One of my favorite concepts in psychology is called the self-fulfilling prophecy. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. The image below simplifies it as well as you can.

This means that it is incredibly important for you to believe things can be better, that you can achieve the goals you set and occasionally, that you believe you can fly.

So here’s the thing folks, we create our own success and happiness through three simple things, our attitude, our effort and our expectations. So if you believe you can achieve something, if you carry with you an attitude that creates positivity and you work real hard you can achieve any reasonable goal, most unreasonable goals and the occasional miracle. And without a doubt my friends, you will have more happy days. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged attitude, be happy, effort, expectation, happiness, positivity, rev kane, self fulfilling prophecies | 2 Comments

Happiness and the 4th of July

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Michael Kane

Happiness and the 4^th of July

Fourth of July Fireworks

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Originally published July 2019

Happy Fourth of July my friends! The day here in America where we celebrate our independence, at least from foreign oppressors. We in the United States are very fortunate to live in a country where we have our independence, our freedom and the fundamental right to pursue happiness guaranteed in the very documents that define our country.

Often over the course of our history this freedom and independence has been guaranteed in blood, by the loss of lives of men and women in our armed forces. By people struggling against oppression, marchers in Selma, people who sat at lunch counters, and recently the government of the state of New York giving the equality of marriage rights to homosexuals. These brave acts, all came from individuals who gave of themselves, sometimes even their lives, so that we can these freedoms and independence.

So, in the spirit of giving that preserves our way of life I would ask you to give this 4^th of July. Whether it be a charitable donation, your time in service, or even just a kind word or a random act of kindness, give a little bit of happiness today in thanks. I assure you, it will come back three fold, have a happy fourth of July, go see some fireworks and have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Some other posts on Happiness!

Happy Anniversary – Ministry of Happiness: Our Best Posts

Fear is Killing Your Happiness

Remember the Sweet Things

Happiness is Taking Risks

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged 4th of july, blog, civil rights, fourth of july, freedom, happiness, independence, life, roosevelt | Leave a comment

The Ministry of Happiness

Happiness and Being Special

Happiness and Being Special

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Voices from the Past

Voices from the past

Yes you can, be happy!

Yes you can, be happy!

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

My COVID Times Diary – Silver Lining

My COVID Times Diary – Silver Lining

Everybody is just winging it!

Everybody is just winging it!

Other Posts on How to be Happy!

We all need a little adventure

We all need a little adventure

Happiness is Honesty, Simplicity & Gratitude

Happiness is Simplicity

Thoughtful Happiness Quotes

Thoughtful Happiness Quotes

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

It’s about constructing your own reality

It’s about constructing your own reality

Attitude

Effort

Expectations

Happiness and the 4th of July

Happiness and the 4^th of July

Some other posts on Happiness!

Follow Blog via Email

To Follow this Blog Click Here!