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If you would like to add anything to "How to be Happy", please write to us - address is on home page - link at end of this page. May the wind be at your back and may you reach heaven an hour before the devil knows you are dead .. Irish blessings.
"happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. So start each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for. Your future will depend very largely on the thoughts you think today. So think thoughts of hope and confidence and love and success."
Dale Carnegie
You don't find happiness any more than you find steel. You refine steel from the rough ore and you fashion happiness from life's opportunities.
author Charles Templeton.Most experts agree that there are no shortcuts to happiness, but these guidelines are like a little chicken soup: it couldn't hurt.
* Understand that happy people do not experience joy twenty-four hours a day. Even a happy person can have a bad day or a bad year but still experience pleasure in small things. (A walk works wonders!)
* Pretend you're a famous actor: If you're not feeling happy today, fake it. In experiments, people who were manipulated to smile actually felt happier.
* Don't postpone happiness until you reach a certain goal, like losing ten pounds or going on vacation. Studies show that the effects are short-lived.
* If you tend to dwell on the negative, balance that by consciously spending a few minutes every day dwelling on the good things in your life. Like an exercise, practise this each day and try to extend the time you spend thinking positively.
* Adopt positive habits. Eat balanced meals, do some exercise every day, get enough rest.
* Nurture all of the positive relationships in your life. (Excise all the negative).
* Take time to reflect. This could involve meditation, prayer or just thinking. A spiritual dimension seems to be an essential component of a happy life.
When one door of happiness closes another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Helen Keller.
"Pleasure comes with the fulfillment of desire, i.e. getting what you want and wanting what you get.
Happiness comes with the fulfillment of the person.
Much of our moral confusion comes from the fact that we no longer know what happiness is, nor how to obtain it." Roger Scruton in "The Good Life" (1998).