Tuesday, July 10, 2012

How to Be Happy

The world is full of different cultures-different colors, different customs, different foods, different priorities. With those cultures, within your own culture, every person is unique-different values, different thoughts, different beliefs.

Despite this incomprehensible variety, we often hear that people are the same. How is that possible? How can we be so different, yet somehow all the same? While a complete answer to that question is outside the scope of this article, the most fundamental explanation is quite simple: we all want to be happy.

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How we get to 'happy' may take a thousand different forms. Some people believe pursuing material abundance will lead them to that promised land. Others think a life of austerity and self-denial are the only true roads. But who's right?

How to Be Happy

Both and neither.

It's hard to find a step-by-step method to attaining lasting happiness, but the basics are pretty simple and straightforward. The most important realization, the crucial beginnings of any journey to a happier life and a more enjoyable existence is understanding that you decide how you feel in every moment of your life.

Sure, it's not as obvious as deciding what color shirt to wear in the morning, but every time you feel something, it's because you've decided. At this point, people usually become defensive, especially if they're not feeling too great because almost nobody wants to take responsibility for feeling crummy. That, however, doesn't change the fact that you are responsible for how you feel, almost all the time. Participating consciously in your emotional state is a big step forward.

Another understandable denial tactic is skepticism. People would never choose to feel bad. That's absurd. I agree...it's absurd. It's hard to imagine people making themselves feel bad, but it's an obvious fact. If you need or want evidence sit in a crowded public place and watch the world go by. You'll find plenty of evidence in the scowled faces and closed postures that people clutch onto pain and replay it in their head again and again thereby maintaining that crummy state.

Next, people inevitably point out the plethora of 'bad' things happening in the world as objective reasons why they feel bad and why it's not their fault. I mean, if the world's going to end or the economy's in the toilet, who has time or reason to feel good? For sure, it's a long list, but no matter what's happening in the world around, you still have the ultimate choice to decide how you feel.

I'll concede that there are some events in life that supersede our capacity to influence our emotional state, but they are the rare, rare exception. For example, I think physical violence can temporarily short-circuit our conscious minds and we end up feeling however we've habitually felt or interpreted how we should feel. The loss of a loved one is another time of natural grief, but that's about as far as it goes.

Here's why:

How you feel in any given moment can be described as the physical result of your judgment about the streaming stimulus you're constantly receiving through your senses. Please read that again. Yes, emotions are first a physical experience, a bio-chemical event precipitated by how you judge the experiences of your life. Of course, a lot, maybe most of that judgment is automatic. That is, you're making the same judgments in any particular situation that you've made in the past. I don't like broccoli. Speaking in front of people is terrifying. These are both examples of generalizations, taking one experience and applying it to every other similar experience.

The way to happiness is very simple, and maybe that's what makes it so difficult.

Accept.

Please notice that I said, 'accept' and not 'like.' There's a big difference between the two. Spending so much time thinking about how much you like this or don't like that will only sink you further into feeling miserable because it's so easy to find things that you don't like.

But on the other hand, if you accept the world around you, your life, as it is, then you're creating a much more stable ground on which to build your emotional life. Suspend judgment on how good this is or how bad that is. Merely accept things as they are.

That's the first step. Once you spend long enough, a day, a week, a month, in this mindset of acceptance, you'll have more space between yourself and your emotions. And it's in this space that you'll be able to truly decide how you feel.

How to Be Happy

A problem well stated is a problem half solved....but how do you go about figuring out the other half? To make any change, you've got to familiarize yourself with yourself. That's where it all begins and ends.

To get a free report on the subject, click this link

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