The idea that we have to work at happiness comes as news to many people. We assume it’s a feeling that comes as a result of good things that just happen to us, or from the way others treat us, things over which we have little or no control, but actually the opposite is true; happiness is under our own control. It is a battle to be waged, not a feeling to be awaited. Happiness requires discipline.

We owe it to our partner, our children, our friends, and our co-workers to be as happy as we can be. Subjecting others to our unhappiness is unkind and hurtful. If you don’t believe it, ask a child what it’s like to grow up with an unhappy parent, or ask parents what pain they suffer if they have an unhappy child.

Anyone can be unhappy; it takes no courage or effort. True achievement lies in struggling to be happy.

There is little correlation between the circumstances of people’s lives and how happy they are. We all know people who have had a relatively easy life, yet are essentially unhappy. We also know people who have suffered a great deal but generally remain happy.

One key is gratitude. All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.

Another key is realizing that happiness becomes much easier when we keep ourselves busy pursuing our interests, pursuits that give our lives purpose—anything from gardening to continuing our education to volunteering. Idleness leads to loneliness, and loneliness leads to unhappiness. The busier we are with our passions, the more happiness we’re likely to experience.

Also, the belief that our existence has a significance or purpose larger than our self helps us to be happier. Happy people possess a spirituality, or a philosophy of life.

Finally, choosing to be optimistic rather than pessimistic is a requirement. Whatever your life philosophy, it should encompass this truism: if you choose to look for the negative in situations, you will find the negative, and if you choose to seek out the positive in situations—all situations—the positive is what you will find. As with happiness itself, this is entirely your choice to make.

—adapted from “Happiness is a Serious Problem” by Dennis Prager

It is often stored in a large box or small, safely out of sight on a closet shelf. When, and if, our sense of equity or decency is attacked by an emotional and unacceptable experience that forces its way into our consciousness, we often retrieve our box from the closet shelf and start another affair. Although fleeting, this is a good thing.

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
    Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
    Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
    Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
    Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
    Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
    Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
    Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
    Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
    Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
    Give the world the best you have anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001

Be the Change
by M. Gatlianne
Originally published in  OM Times Magazine on February 14, 2012

Realize that if you are the change you wish to see, that you are fighting against the current and that you will often fall.

You must get up and keep going. Change does not come easily, even to those who want it. You must be an advocate, an inspiration, a model. You must be willing to take the hurt, the pain and the knocks. You must sacrifice for the greater good. You must be willing to make your path, the path for everyone to follow. You must lose your ego and give your love. You must trust that you are right in your endeavor.

You will be tired; you will be hurt; you will feel much pain – but the joy of seeing loving change in one person’s eyes will override all the misery you may have felt.

The big picture will sometimes become blurred – you will falter, you will stumble along your path. You will wonder if your fight is worth the agony – it will be. Do good – strive to help others – strive to show others they can do good as well.

• Learn self-sacrifice. Put others before you. Make your life something to be proud of, something to stand for, something good and full of love.
• Recognize your faults – learn from them.
• Teach – listen to what you teach; we often teach what we most need to learn.
• Love – be love.
• Know you can always be better and you will always have more to learn.
• Never back down.
• Lead and hope, but do not expect, that others will follow.
• Never use force.

What would have happened if the greats had stopped … if they’d gotten tired and given up?

• Jesus
• Ghandi
• Mother Teresa
• Buddha
• Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where would we be if they had given up on us?

What will the world become if we give up on it?

©2012 M Gatlianne – From Freedom is a Feather: Words for Change
Originally published in  OM Times Magazine on February 14, 2012
Source: OM Times Magazine

Choose one …or a bunch!

1. Deliver candy, balloons, or cards to a local disability day care facility.
2. Give food to a local food pantry — call first to find out what their pressing needs are.
3. Go to a busy building that doesn’t have automatic doors and be the doorman/woman for 30 minutes. Smile at everyone and wish each a good day. If anyone asks why you’re doing what you’re doing, tell them, with a big smile, because it’s Valentine’s Day.
4. Deliver one or two dozen heart shaped cookies to an elderly couple or individual living in your neighborhood. Make sure you introduce yourself and get their names if you haven’t already.
5. Spend 30 minutes visiting someone in a nursing home facility who doesn’t receive regular visitors. Ask the staff, they’ll let you know whom to visit. Don’t go at dinner/supper time.
6. Create or buy six Valentine cards and deliver them to a local nursing home. Write some fun, funny, or sentimental things inside. Leave them unsealed and unaddressed. Take them to the administration office or nurse station and ask if they would select six individuals and deliver them. They can add the person’s name and seal the envelope. (they’ll need to look inside envelopes from strangers — even nice strangers)
7. Deliver one or two dozen heart shaped cookies to the staff at a local DMV or post office. (or, make four dozen and combine numbers 4 and 7)
8. Tell someone that you love them — someone that you love very much, but you haven’t actually told them in quite some time.
9. Volunteer at a free meal site for a couple of hours. Usually, they can always use additional help.
10. Donate some of your valued and useful clothes to a local clothing distribution center that serves struggling individuals and families. Current season clothing is always best.
11. Smile and say hello to every person you make eye contact with for the entire day. Hold the eye contact for at least three seconds.
12. Help two people who appear to be struggling to accomplish a task (sweep, shovel, load a vehicle, etc., if you looking for the opportunity to help, you’ll find it).
13. Refrain from saying ANYTHING negative about ANY individual for the entire day — including YOURSELF.
14. Call an elderly relative or individual who has had a positive impact in your earlier life. Choose someone you haven’t talked with for some time, let them know that you were thinking of them, and are grateful for the influence they had in your life.

Note: If you partake in one or more of these love-filled gifts, they’ll be one additional love recipient …you!

Happy Valentine’s Day to all.

I want to be fit for myself to know.
I want to be able as days go by,
always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don’t want to stand with the setting sun
and hate myself for the things I have done.
I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf
a lot of secrets about myself
and fool myself as I come and go
into thinking no one else will ever know
the kind of person I really am,
I don’t want to dress up myself in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect
I want to deserve all men’s respect;
but here in the struggle for fame and wealth
I want to be able to like myself.
I don’t want to look at myself and know that
I am bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself and so,
whatever happens I want to be
self respecting and conscience free.

by Edgar Guest

I have sound physical health because I live temperately in all things, and eat only the foods which Nature requires for body maintenance.

I am free from fear in all of its forms.

I hate no man, envy no man, but love all mankind.

I am engaged in a labor of love with which I mix play generously. Therefore I never grow tired.

I give thanks daily, not for more riches, but for wisdom with which to recognize, embrace and properly use the great abundance of riches I now have at my command.

I speak no name save only to honor it.

I ask no favors of anyone except the privilege of sharing my riches with all who will receive them.

I am on good terms with my conscience. Therefore it guides me correctly in all that I do.

I have no enemies because I injure no man for any cause, but I benefit all with whom I come into contact by teaching them the way to enduring riches.

I have more material wealth than I need because I am free from greed and covet only the material things I can use while I live.

I own a great estate which is not taxable because it exists mainly in my own mind in intangible riches which cannot be assessed or appropriated except by those who adopt my way of life. I created this vast estate by observing Nature’s laws and adapting my habits to conform therewith.

“A Happy Man’s Creed” was written by Napoleon Hill and published in 1945 in his book “The Master Key to Riches.” Mr. Hill is the author of 12 books, of which “Think And Grow Rich” is the most widely known. Although “The Master Key to Riches” was written nearly 70 years ago, the value of “A Happy Man’s Creed” remains alive and well.

Reblogged from Goal Habits.com:

“Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.”   —Stephen Vincent Benét You may think that you are young or have plenty of time to make amends, to right a wrong, to say ‘I love you’ …but life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day. Soon a day has passed, then two, then three, then a week. And those simple words that remain unsaid continue to haunt our attempt at tranquility. You may think that you are young or …