Posts tagged "happiness"

Happiness, Peace and Kindness

By thinking how our mind affects our world and searching the web, I came across this little story. I took it from website called successconsciousness.com. This is basically my view explained and being put in a story line:

The Villager and the Happy Man

By Remez Sasson

In a small village in the valley, lived a man who was always happy, kind, and well disposed to everyone he met. He always smiled, and had a kind and encouraging word to say whenever necessary. Everyone who met him left feeling better, happier and elated. People knew they could count on him, and regarded him as a great friend. One of the village dwellers was curious to know what his secret was, and how he could always be so kind and helpful. He wondered, how is it that he held no grudge toward anyone, and why he was always happy. Once, upon meeting him in the street he asked him: “Most people are selfish and unsatisfied. They do not smile as often as you do; neither are they as helpful or kind as you are. How do you explain it?”"When you make peace with yourself, you can be in peace with the rest of the world. If you can recognize the spirit in yourself, you can recognize the spirit in everyone, and then you find it natural to be kind and well disposed to all. If your thoughts are under your control, you become strong and firm. The personality is like a robot programmed to do certain tasks. Your habits and thoughts are the tools and programs that control your personality. Become free from being programmed, and then the inner good and happiness that reside within you will be revealed.”"But a lot of work is necessary. Good habits have to be developed. The ability to concentrate and to control the thoughts has to be strengthened. The work is difficult and endless. There are many walls that need to be to climbed. It is not an easy task.” Lamented the villager.”Do not think about the difficulties, otherwise this is what you will see and experience. Just quieten your feelings and thoughts, and try to stay in this peace. Just try to be calm, and do not let yourself be carried away by your thoughts.”"Is that all?” Asked the villager.”Try to watch your thoughts and see how they come and go. Stay in the quietness that arises. The moments of peace will be brief at first, but in time they will get longer. This peace is also strength, power, kindness, and love. You will then realize that you are one with the Universal Power, and this will cause you to act from a different dimension, not from the selfish, small, limited ego.”

“I will try to remember your words,” said the villager and continued, “there is another thing that I am curious about. You do not seem to be influenced by the environment. You have a kind word to everyone, and are helpful. However, people treat you well, and do not exploit your goodness.”

“Being good and being kind do not necessarily point to weakness. When you are good, you can also be strong. People sense your inner strength, and therefore do not impose on you. When you are strong and calm inside, you help people, because you can, and you want to. You then act from strength and not from weakness. Goodness can also go with power and strength, it is not a sign of weakness, as some people erroneously think.”

“Thank you very much for your advice and explanation”, said the villager, and went away happy and satisfied.

My note: It all starts with us.

Being Alone vs. Feeling Lonely

There is a fine line between being alone and feeling lonely. Yet, some people think it is the same. When we are single, our friends constantly want to “fix us” up with somebody. We are not broken. They think, we are alone; therefore, we must feel lonely.

Being alone is a physical state. It might be a transitional phase when we choose to have a time to ourselves. It might be a time when we need to heal, or we do not feel like having a relationship right now. Either way, we choose to be that way. We are comfortable in our skin. We are self-reliant and independent. We just enjoy to spend time alone and in the process we grow stronger. We get to know ourselves better, our wants and needs.

On other hand, feeling lonely is a state of mind. It is a state when we do not know ourselves well enough; therefore, we are not comfortable. We can have somebody next to us and still feel lonely. When we feel lonely, we depend on somebody for our own happiness; we rely on somebody to tell us who we are. We are not comfortable in our skin. Therefore, we long for somebody to fill that gap, to show our best when the answer lays in our own hearts.

How to heal loneliness? The thing is when we are not happy with ourselves, nobody will bring happiness to us. At first, it might appear that way, but it is an illusion, and it will be a short-lived. To cure loneliness, we got to find our passions, our loves, what makes our heart sing. We got to re-discover ourselves and pursue our dreams. When we are comfortable in ourselves and when the time is right, we might meet someone who will compliment us.

Mirror Concept

When we look at the mirror, what do we see? Do we see tiredness, sadness, wrinkles? Or do we see happiness, enthusiasm, smile? Do we see pain and struggles? Or do we see sparkling energy and love?

Now, let’s look at the outside world. What we notice first? How we relate to people? Do we see them struggling or being successful? Do we encounter sadness or happiness?

Usually, our inner state reflect our outside world. What we choose to concentrate on, that’s what we see. What we feel inside, that’s what we feel and see around us. That’s why it is so easy to feel empathy for people who are going or went through similar situations that we did. We can feel their pain or joy. Now, if somebody is going through entirely different experience that we never been through, we will not understand it; it will feel odd to us.

We are all conditioned by our past, good or bad and by what we know. We’ve been through ups and downs and sideways. We view our world through our past experiences, what is familiar to us. If we been through pain, we view our world through pain. We encounter people who are going through the same pain. Sometimes pain becomes anger, hatred and revenge. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We want the person who hurt us to be hurt. We want them to suffer the same way they made us suffer. Where does it get us, though? Like Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” It does not do anything good, except it causes more pain.

Now, if we would concentrate from a place of love and compassion, no matter of circumstances, the outcome would be completely different. We would start caring for each other. Instead of war, there would be peace. Instead of hatred, there would be love. One man can make a world of difference. Let that be us. Gandhi is one of many examples. He saw peace for India; he stood for his beliefs and by being himself, he reached seemingly unattainable.

So, how about instead of wrinkles, let’s see lines of wisdom. Instead of tiredness, let’s see rest. Instead of sadness, let’s consciously smile more. Instead of struggles, let’s imagine our dreams come true. Instead of pain, let’s fill our hearts with love. Love does conquer it all. If we change our outlook in life and see our world through new open possibilities, we will change our life for the better. Let’s reflect goodness from our hearts into the mirror of outside world and make a difference now.

What is Happiness?

Often times we depend on someone or something to make us happy. We think, “When I’ll make x amount of $, I’ll be happy,” or “When I’ll meet someone special…” or “When I quit my job…” or “When I’ll get married…,” or “When… (fill the blank).” List goes on. What we do not realize is that we can be happy right here, right now. We usually seek happiness outside ourselves, when Happiness is an inner state of mind. Often times, people comment that I always smile, I am always happy. That’s what I choose to be. My personal motto is “Life is too short to be unhappy.”

You may protest, “How can I be happy if I lost my job, if there is a shortage of money, if kids are making me crazy, etc., etc.”? These are only your life situations, transitional events, opportunities for a change. They do not make who you are. They do not define your being. Look at the 3rd world countries. People there do not have much, but they sing and laugh like nothing matters. Look at children – every small thing fascinates them. It does not make much to make them happy.

In Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, one of the synonyms for “happiness” is gladness. My happiness consists of gratitude. I’m very grateful for everyday that I live. I’m grateful for my family and friends. I’m grateful for my life. That’s all what is important to me. Sure, there might be worries or unsatisfied wishes or frustrating events. They are nothing compared that I’m so fortunate to have what is important to me: my family, friends, pets, my health and my life.

Problems do not define who we are. They are just the next steps in our lives to get to the higher level, to go to the next transition. We can fight it and be miserable, or we can go with the flow – make choices which way to go. Life is all about choices. It is a matter of opening the doors and go whatever direction we choose to. Now if there seems no doors, we can always make them by breaking the wall.

When I’m in the state of happiness, it does not take much to be happy. When I’m in the state of gratitude, everything – the smallest things fascinate me: a blooming rose, a walk on the beach, wind in the hair, sunshine, puppy’s hug, to hug and kiss my family and friends.

Life is too precious. Enjoy every minute of it one smile at the time, minute by minute, and be grateful of what you have.

Smile

When you are happy person, I think a smile just fixates on your face automatically, without any effort from you. Here, I bring all the reasons to smile about (taken from allgreatquotes.com and quotegarden.com):

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. – Mother Theresa

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The world always looks brighter from behind a smile. – Author Unknown

A smile is a powerful weapon; you can even break ice with it. – Author Unknown

A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks. – Charles Gordy

Life is like a mirror, we get the best results when we smile at it. – Author Unknown

Smile, it’s the second best thing you can do with your lips. – Author Unknown

Everyone smiles in the same language. – Author Unknown

Since I’m trouble-maker, I love these quotes the best. Perhaps that’s the reasons that I smile most of the time:

Smile! It irritates people. – Author Unknown

A smile confuses an approaching frown. – Author Unknown

Keep smiling – it makes people wonder what you’ve been up to. – Author Unknown

If you would like to spoil the day for a grouch, give him a smile. – Author Unknown

Beauty is power; a smile is its sword. – Charles Reade

I hope these quotes and photos made your day and gave a reason to smile, too. Have a Fantastic Day, my friends!