What is happiness... Really? – For me personally it's a state of mind where nothing is a problem. Where life still feels pretty good even if (say) you don’t have a job or a partner perhaps and you wake up every day thinking positive thoughts and saying positive things.
There are many things you can do to be happier, but my top seven are;
1 Stop Worrying
Free your mind of all the things you currently worry about. Worrying and stressing over problems does NOT solve them. Action does.
YOU are in charge of your life.
Only YOU can make things happen the way you want them to happen.
2 Stop Wasting Money and ‘Make Do’ With Less
We all need money that’s for sure but see how much less you can do with. Take a look at all the things in your life right now that cost you money – either as capital (TV’s computers, cars, boats, gym memberships etc) or on-going expenses such as mobile phones, electricity, rent, mortgage etc and see how you can cut back on some of those.
I recently changed service providers for a website, insurance for our car, caravan & house, our mobile phones and a merchant bank account and worked out I now spend almost $3,000 a year less!
Not having enough money for the basics creates stress – stress creates anxiety, anxious people are NEVER happy.
3 Surround Yourself With Positive Friends
While no-one can guarantee you will have the same friends for life, make sure you surround yourself with people who are happy to just be with you and you with them.
You don’t want ‘users’ sucking out all your energy.
Some friends can be ‘hard work’ but if a friend has a problem that really does seem like they need professional help – Make sure as a friend you help them get it sooner rather than later.
Just ask… ‘R-U-OK?’
4 Make Compromising A Habit
Compromising doesn’t mean doing without.
It just means you and the other person give up part of something you would like to have or do while still keeping the other person happy that they too have ‘what they want’.
If we were to never compromise we’d either have absolutely everything we wanted and no friends or job whatsoever or we’d have absolutely nothing – and still the possibility of no friends or job at all!
5 Check Your Ego
We all have an ego – in fact a healthy ego is a good thing. Without it we shrink inwards and feel hopeless, but our ‘alter ego’ can reveal itself to be a selfish thing in some way shape or form.
Once you realise that, it’s a fairly easy matter to then make changes to how you act and react to various situations.
Ego is not just about ‘skiting’ about how good you are at something or where you’ve been. Ego is about thinking positive thoughts about yourself while still allowing yourself to make mistakes and not beat up on yourself.
6 Stop Feeling Guilty!
Such a wasted emotion – There is absolutely NO point feeling guilty about anything. Looking at it from a practical side – if you knew something was wrong, why did you do it in the first place?...
Or looked at another way – feeling guilty about something only eats away at you from the inside where it can't do any good anyway – what’s done is done.
Learn from any mistakes you may have made and MOVE ON!
7 Laugh Your Head Off
‘Laugh and the world laughs with you… Weep and you weep alone!’ – In fact this saying is part of a poem called ‘Solitude’ written in 1883 by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. And while the poem itself is quite ‘old-fashioned’ the ideas behind it are not.
Not too long ago some archaeologists uncovered further remains of the Roman empire. What they found was graffiti.
Nothing particularly unusual except that the graffiti made some very ‘jokey’ references to the ruling classes of the time along the lines of ‘Claudius has a big nose!’ showing even the peasants back then could laugh at their situation.
During our World Wars and even the current conflicts today, soldiers’ morale is kept high by touring entertainment troops. Even the military knows an army marches not just on its stomach but on its ability to smile and be happy – even under fire.
As you can see people have known for a long time how to laugh in times of adversity.
I’ll leave you with a couple of verses from the Monty Python movie ‘The Life of Brian’
– the song is ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life…’ words and music by Eric Idle
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
Story (c) 2009 - 2021 Brian Pickering
