Happiness Defined
Happiness is an enduring positive
psychological stage of mind.
"Success
is getting what you want;
happiness is wanting what you get."
Attaining Happiness
Happiness
can be attained in numerous ways:
virtuous living,
love, continuous
creative activity, and many others.
According to Immanuel Kant, "Happiness is the
satisfaction of all our desires: extensive in regard to their multiplicity,
intensive in regard to their degree, protensive in regard to their
duration."
So, attaining happiness is all about
managing your desires.
"A well guarded mind brings happiness. Those
who are free from all worldly desires will attain Nirvana. Never covet
what others have. It is deadly sin which grows away from all happiness.
Learn to be happy with what you have," taught
Buddha.
Life-Business
Synergy
Happiness is not about life-business
balance, it's about
Life-Business Synergy.
The Cause of Unhappiness
"If you look carefully you will see that there
is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that
thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging
caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you
cannot be happy. Again and again we need to let go."
~ Anthony de Mello
Choose To Be Happy
Happiness is a two-way road. The only source of
happiness
– and
unhappiness
– comes from inside yourself.
Yes,
you are
what you think.
The address of your
happiness is
www.your.mind.
Happiness is not something that comes to you.
It is
something you create now, today. Waiting for something to change
in order to be happy is waiting to live your life.
It is not what happens to you that counts. It is
how you react to what happens to you. It is your
attitude. When you adopt a
positive attitude,
your
life becomes a rewarding adventure instead of
something to get through.
Do What You Love and Share With Others
If you wish to be happy, you have to be less
involved in your own happiness and more involved in the happiness of other
beings. "Make others happy and you become happy as a result. Involve
yourself totally, throw yourself into what you are doing in life, and
happiness will result. If you are compromising, i.e. doing something you
hate as a means to an end so that good will result one fine day, STOP! Begin
to do more of what you love NOW and let that grow until it fills your life.
Then happiness will be yours, and you will be better able to bring happiness
to the world," says
Asoka
Selvarajah.
→
The
Power of
Passion
Know Your Higher Self
"Finding
happiness is like finding yourself. You don't find happiness, you make
happiness. You choose happiness. Self-actualization is a process of
discovering who you are, who you want to be and paving the way to happiness
by doing what brings YOU the most meaning and contentment to your life over
the long run,"
says
David Leonhardt.
Like everyone, you want joy, happiness and life purpose. "But the problem
is, most people are looking in all the wrong places. Career. Money.
Relationships. Power. Yet, esoteric teachings claim all answers lie
within you. They describe a secret jewel inside within the heart. The
treasure of infinite value. The divine essence called... The Higher Self,"
says Asoka Selvarajah, the author of
The
7 Golden Secrets to Knowing Your Higher Self,
Know What You Want
Do you have a dream? Do you
want something to change in your life?
Not knowing what you
want can be a confusing, frustrating and miserable time. Discover what it is
that you want,
what goals will make you happy.
The Importance of Values and Mission
The clearer you are about what you
value and believe in, and what you stand for, the happier and more effective
you will be. The values you choose for yourself, and the order of priority you
place on your choices, will determine your approach to your life and work.
Breaking Free of Routine
Most people are living life on autopilot.
Routine
one of the most powerful obstacles you will ever encounter. Routine is so
dangerous and so powerful that even the best of intentions can be knocked
down for good because of it.
Breaking free of routine is like bursting through a brick wall with
nothing but opportunity on the other side.
You'll see the world in an
entirely new way and be excited about creating a happier, more
successful future, says
Jason Gracia, the author of
Motivation123.
Knowing You Are Competent and Capable
Being inwardly happy (knowing you are competent and capable) automatically
improves levels of quality and excellence in your work. Understand
that inner happiness only comes about via Self esteem + Self respect +
Personal Pride. Get these ingredients right and with careful written
planning the rest will simply fall into place...
More
Buddhism about Happiness
"The first step in seeking
happiness is learning. We first have to learn how negative emotions and
behaviors are harmful to us and how positive emotions are helpful. We must
also realize that these negative emotions are not only very bad and harmful
to one personally, but are also harmful to society and the future of the
whole world," teaches
Dalai Lama.
Everyone wants to be
happy and no one wants to suffer, but very few people understand the real
causes of happiness and suffering. We tend to look for happiness outside
ourselves, thinking that if we had the right house, the right car, the right
job, and the right friends we would be truly happy. We spend almost all our
time adjusting the external world, trying to make it conform to our wishes.
All our life we have tried to surround ourselves with people and things that
make us feel comfortable, secure, or stimulated, yet still we have not found
pure and lasting happiness.
It is time we sought happiness from a different
source. Happiness is a state of mind, so the real source of happiness must
lie within the mind, not in external conditions. If our mind is pure and
peaceful we shall be happy, regardless of our external circumstances, but if
it is impure and unpeaceful we can never be truly happy, no matter how hard
we try to change our external conditions. We could change our home or our
partner countless times, but until we change our
restless, discontented mind
we shall never find true happiness.
Case
in Point
The
Dalai Lama's
Approach
Dalai Lama
believes
that
happiness can be
achieved through
compassion and training the mind.
From his perspective there is an inextricable link between one's own
personal happiness and kindness and caring and compassion towards others.
It's not only from the Dalai Lama's perspective –
from his particular view of life and Buddhist philosophy –
but also from the scientific standpoint that shows that happy people are
much more likely to show compassion. What's remarkable is this amazing link
between happiness and kindness towards others. Happier people are more
likely to help the other person. But the Dalai Lama feels that it works the
other way around as well. That the deliberate cultivation of kindness and
compassion and caring and tolerance and forgiveness and these type of things
will make one a happier person.
Dalai Lama's approach to achieving happiness
begins with distinguishing between spirituality and religion. To have a
spiritual dimension in your life, you should appreciate your potential as a
human being and recognize the importance of inner transformation through a
process of mental development.
The art of happiness has many components. It
begins with developing an understanding of what are the truest sources of
happiness and setting your priorities in life based on the cultivation of
those sources. "It involves an inner discipline, a gradual process of
rooting out destructive mental states and replacing them with positive,
constructive states of mind, such as kindness, tolerance, and forgiveness."2
Balance is a key element of a happy life.
Case
in Point
Bertrand Russell about Happiness
"There is not law of nature guaranteeing that
mankind should be happy. Everybody can see that this is true of our life
here on earth, but by a curious twist our very sufferings in this life are
made into an argument for a better life hereafter. We should not employ such
an argument in any other connection. If you had bought ten dozen eggs from a
man, and the first dozen were all rotten, you would not infer that the
remaining nine dozen must be of surpassing excellence; yet that is the kind
of reasoning that "the heart" encourages as a consolation for our sufferings
here below."1
Case in Point
Bob
Griffiths
Stressed out and deeply in debt, Griffiths left
a six-figure Wall Street position in 1988 to pursue his dream as a
playwright, actor, and teacher. He sold his eighteenth-century mansion and
downsized his luxury lifestyle, and he found happiness in the process.
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