Do You Choose Happiness?
Today is the start of the weekend. It’s a time we all look forward to, and it seems all over you hear things like “TGIF!” as people move to the weekend. It’s a time for happiness. Why is is that we seem to focus on weekends as being the happy times and weekdays being the “drudgery of life” days?
Here’s a great quote for you:
“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” – Groucho Marx
It really is all about choices, even with our happiness. We cannot control anyone else’s actions, but we do have the power to decide how we react to it. In my own life, that lesson took a long time. It was always much easier to blame someone else for “making me feel” some way or other. It is also so easy to worry about tomorrow or regret yesterday. What does that really accomplish? Not much.
I’m reading a great book now by Tom Peters called “The Big Little Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence.” If you love to read, I suggest you get this. His insights are amazing. It’s a great book for anyone, no matter whether you have a business or are an employee. Last night I found some great pieces of advise about what to do in times of recession. I have really just started this book, and still would recommend it as a great read.
So how do we choose to be happy in our lives? It’s one of those simple things, you simply make the choice. Remove yourself from people who are filled with negativity; it’s contagious and really doesn’t serve any purpose. Embrace the changes that hit you in life, in your work and in your family life. Choose to find the things to be happy about in those situations.
On a personal note, this weekend is a happy one for me. On Sunday, I will celebrate one year of being married to the most amazing man. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year and at the same time it feels like we have been together forever. I am blessed and it is one of the things I am happy about in my life. We are on our way to a getaway to celebrate and you may not see blog posts until after the first of the week when we return.
Remember, that you get to write your life’s story every single day. Make it a great one!What about you? What things do you use to put off negativity and CHOOSE to be happy with what life deals you? I look forward to your responses!
Related posts:
- How Do You Define Happiness?
- Medical Transcription: Why Choose It?
- Faith or Fear: Which Will You Choose?
- Medical Transcription and Change: Choose Wisely
- What If
Tagged with: affirmations • Goals • happiness • values • writing your life story
Filed under: Goals
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So true, Kathy! It is truly phenomenal what a difference an intentional shift in attitude makes in each and every moment. Lately I have redoubled my efforts to set my intentions for continued happiness and to playfully throw out my gratitude into the future for all the good things already here and all the good things yet to come. Not only does this seem to “magically” bring more good things my way, but it does wonders for my attitude right here and now and seems to bring out the best in those around me too! I love the synergy of this approach.
I hope you have a terrific “getaway.” Happy anniversary!
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Kathy Reply:
June 11th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Charmaine, this is so true as well! It’s interesting how our mind attracts those things that it focuses on. I learned that awhile back as I read the book “The Secret” and started to try practicing some of the things there. It is pretty amazing!
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My hero, Abe Lincoln, said, “People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I firmly believe it is based on attitude – and that is something we have control over. I also like “Worry is the darkroom where negatives are developed.” Sure, we’d like to change people, situations, decisions we regret, things about our jobs or relatives or our country – but a lot of that is beyond our control. Our attitude is one of the few things we can control.
The people I’ve known or read about who inspire me are usually folks who have had the positive attitude to overcome personal challenges, and in turn, make their lives richer and fuller and make the world a better place. In other words, they wanted to be happy, and they got there. I just read about a guy born without arms and legs whose parents taught him to swim at 18 months and from there, he went on to learn to type (“with the toe that extends from the small foot on his left hip,”) swim, golf, surf, and play soccer. He is a motivational speaker (http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/). It’s strange that the very people who “deserve” to be miserable all their lives sometimes are the ones who understand what they need to do to be happy and fulfilled. Nick Vujicic makes my life seem like Easy Street.
Sometimes, you just need a little (or a lot) of introspection to determine priorities and values and in turn, what happiness means to you. Often it’s hard work to change your attitude and mindset, but I read that it’s an equal amount of work to make yourself miserable, so it’s your choice, LOL. Sometimes all it takes is to read about somebody like Nick Vujicic and your whole outlook is transformed.
Thanks for your book recommendations, Kathy. In turn, I’d like to recommend a magazine called “Experience Life” for help in all sorts of ways to make life more meaningful (an excerpt at http://tinyurl.com/33xxkaw). Here’s to happiness!
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Kathy Reply:
June 11th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Thanks, Carol. This magazine looks great and I am going to read it. I saw some great articles listed on their website. Thanks so much for sharing it!
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My wise mother used to say. “Stop wishing your life away.” Having just lost my best friend, it brought home that you have a finite amount of time in this life. Use that time wisely because it could be gone in a flash. Another momism, “Live every moment as if it might be your last.”
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I think I have always been a positive person. Back when I was waitressing, it was amazing to me all the people who came into the supper club with bad attitudes–or perhaps a little less than bad, maybe just “cloudy” or “iffy.” I made it MY job not only to be the best waitress I could for them but also to make their time with me SO enjoyable that THEIR attitude did a 180 before they left!
My mother-in-law is the type of person who is miserable all the time. In fact, it seems to be HER goal in life to bring everyone else DOWN to her level! Since I met her at Christmas of 1999, she has just seemed to get worse and worse, even though I try my hardest to change her attitude. Don’t anyone worry–she will never change mine. I know that in the end, “Good always wins.” I truly believe that somehow, someday, she is going to wake up to the fact that what is making her miserable is that she TELLS herself she is…and so she is!
I believe in self-fulfilling prophecies in many ways. I once lived just outside the town of Brainerd, Minnesota and lived about a block from a small tavern that every Sunday night held a “500″ tournament. The first couple times I participated, I really didn’t know what to expect, so it was just kind of getting to know the procedure and getting to know the people who played, all of them “regulars,” of course. By the third or fourth week that I participated, I arrived after psyching myself out for about an hour that “tonight I am going to have a great night–I am going to win!” And, believe it or not, I DID win! The prize wasn’t even a grand amount of money…it was a dumb little plastic trophy that was about 5 inches tall. Still, to me it is a tangible reminder that often what you get out of life is influenced GREATLY by your mindset.
Now, I might just have had a truly fun night with a bunch of people that mostly I didn’t know from Adam…but either way, I think about my mother-in-law in a situation like this (which would never happen because she just wouldn’t go)…and the thing is that if she DID go, she wouldn’t do well at the game because she would sort of believe herself right into losing. Beyond that, she would probably just make the evening miserable for everyone else, and they would leave at the end of the night just hoping she would never expose them to her sour, dour countenance ever again! Oh, she can be a great hostess at a get-together, but that’s almost like a “good first impression.” Once you get to know her at all, you can see the negativity she has made it her goal to spread to everyone she meets. Well, she may try to work her evil magic on me, but I counter it with all my good magic….and since I believe that good is so much stronger, I truly believe some day (if she lives long enough) I will change her attitude.
I think that every day at least 75% of the people I encounter are mired in some amount of negativity within themselves. As soon as I do the littlest nice thing, I can tell the difference. You can see a person’s “I’m having a bad day attitude” begin to thaw the minute you give them a genuine smile, maybe say hello….if it’s someone that you know, you can actually stop where you are and let them know that you’ve kind of been missing them and wouldn’t it be fun to get together with coffee (tea? hot cocoa? a glass of wine?) and just get caught up with each other? Maybe a little bit of someone being interested in how they are doing or what they’ve been up to is just the thing to perk them up–maybe someone DOES care about them, and that is bound to make them feel a bit better about themselves.
It’s not even a whole lot different than when one of those psychologist-type people say that we need to take out a few minutes every day just to recharge our own batteries. You can help yourself to feel more rested, more powerful, more alive, more positive, more ready to tackle the world….after you’ve had that soak in the tub with nice soft music, candlelight, a few pages out of a good book; or maybe a session of yoga or relaxation exercises; or whatever works for you.
Positive attitudes begin inside and they are enlarged with reinforcement with whatever works for you; and I believe that sharing a positive attitude makes it grow rather than diminishes it.
I don’t know…perhaps I’m just “simple,” but I think that life really only gets complicated when we make it that way. We can let our positive attitudes not only affect us as individuals but also to have an effect on everyone we encounter every day. How nice would our world be if everyone had the goal of making someone else’s life better every day vs. what I see as the majority of the people I meet each day being so self-centered that they hardly even notice when someone smiles and says hello?
Hope y’all have a GREAT day…and weekend!
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Happy first anniversary, Kathy!! Hope your getaway was fantastic!
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