Category: Happiness

The Work Of Being Happy

Happiness, Health, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There is an impulse in us to avoid negative thoughts and feelings at all costs. Some, however, dwell within the negativity and let it take them over. Neither approach, I feel, will be effective in the long run, if you want to be happy. It is better to engage our negative thoughts and feelings and invite them in for tea, so to speak.

Once they become familiar to us as aspects of ourselves then we can understand why they are there and resolve the underlying causes. This is the work of living a happy and fulfilling life. I recommend utilising both meditation and writing a daily journal.

When One Door Closes

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Leadership, Success

In life there are ways and processes that we find helpful and that make life easier, and when they are taken away we feel angry and frustrated. We ask why and complain about how it is not like it used to be. However, what is hidden in these turns of event is that there are other ways of doing these things and other processes. Often they are more helpful and make life more meaningful.

We get stuck in ways of doing things that feel comfortable or familiar or ways that have been drummed into us as the ‘right’ way to do something. We rarely question these ways of doing things, as we go about our routine filled lives.

At work this past week I found it difficult to help a customer as a process I had become used to changed. I spent some time moaning to colleagues, who join in with my indignation, before asking my Manager what I could do. My Manager gave me an alternative that I had never thought of before, which was a better option all round and allowed me to help the customer. When one door closes look for an alternative door, it may be a better one.

Ask For Help

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Success

Often we get faced with problems at work and in our private lives that we struggle to solve. We may well try to figure it out ourselves and fumble through, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Sometimes we will leave the problem untouched until it becomes a bigger problem that we cannot ignore.

The answer is to ask for help. A simple thing to say, but a difficult thing to do. However, there are people with different knowledge and experience that may well know how to solve your problem with minimal fuss. The hard part is asking.

We feel embarrassed, as if we should be the knower of all things, solver of all problems. Nobody is, we all guess and try things out and get it wrong, but this is how we learn. No one came out of the womb walking and talking, things take practice. We need help to do what we have never done before.

My advice is to surround yourself with people who will help you without judgement and also to avoid judging yourself, and stop assuming others are judging you, because most people are so caught up in their own lives that your problem is not even on their radar. To learn and grow we need to ask for help.

Balancing Opportunities

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Often opportunities come up in life that seem good for progression at work or in life but we hesitate. There are two questions that you should ask before you take any new opportunity.

First, ask yourself whether the new opportunity aligns with who you are. Meaning, does it connect with your values and beliefs, and who you want to be in life?

Second, do you have the resources to take on this new opportunity? By resources I mean time and energy. You need to balance your life, so no one area unbalances things. If you need chill time then don’t sacrifice it for any new opportunity. If you need time to recharge then don’t drain yourself by not giving yourself this time.

Many good opportunities seem beneficial, but you should figure out if they are worth it for you.

Improve Your Life

Happiness, Health, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When a person is depressed we give them antidepressants, which changes their bodies chemistry into a happier state. Our body chemistry is changing all of the time from situation to situation. If we are sleeping it will be one way, if we are exercising it will be another, if we are having an argument it will be another.

What we are physically doing has an impact on our body chemistry, but our thoughts more so. A happy thought and a sad thought create very different states in the body. If we change our thoughts we change our body’s chemistry and we can elevate ourselves to a state of joy or excitement, all with our thinking.

Our thinking patterns have been hard wired into our brains by our beliefs about a variety of things. If we can identify the limiting beliefs and then prove to ourselves that they are untrue, we fundamentally shift ourselves towards a more powerful state of being.

Improve your beliefs, improve your thoughts, improve your life.

Building A Better World

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Relationships, Success

Today is Dr Suess Day and one of my favourite quotes from Dr Seuss books is “Don’t give up. I believe in you all. A person’s a person. No matter how small.” ― Dr. Seuss, “Horton Hears a Who!” I love all of his books, but this is one of my favourites.

We all have our highs and lows in life, our advantages and disadvantages. We are all fighting battles that others can’t see, some big and some small. The message that this quote gives me is firstly, believing in ourselves is necessary for progress to happen, it is is also necessary for others to believe in us too. You could be the person that causes someone to believe in themselves, to become their best self. There is power in believing in others.

Secondly, everyone has equal validity and worth. Therefore, kindness and respect should be a given with all interactions. If someone acts in a way that belittles or hurts others they should be held to account for their actions, but we should still respect their humanity. Never fall for thinking of others as less than human. This opens the door to inhuman treatment of fellow human beings.

Believe in others and they will believe in themselves. Treat all with kindness and respect. This is how we build a better world.

Possibility Blindness

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Relationships, Success

We are largely defined by the environment we live in. The opportunities we have in most western countries are very different to those in third world countries. Our opportunities, or lack of them, will have a direct impact on how we see life.

We are also shaped by the people we spend our time with. Our parents have a significant effect on how we see ourselves and what we are capable of. We learn from a young age views of how easy or difficult it is to make money, how easy or difficult relationships are, and what our self worth is to us, etc.

When we let the views and beliefs of others become ours, we become blind to the possibilities available to us. To see an opportunity we must first think that it is possible. If you are living your life small, then it is likely that you have some limiting beliefs acquired from others. If that is the case, it is time to rewrite your beliefs and become an opportunity seeker. To believe in the possibilities life has to offer. Don’t let the views and beliefs of others give you possibility blindness. Open you eyes and begin to believe that you can, it is possible, but first you must believe that it is.

Living Well

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We often think of a good life as a full life, where we focus on the content of our lives. We cherish wealth and possessions and how other people see us. We cherish successes and we avoid failures. This is a busy life not a life well lived.

An apple tree does not have such objectives, its only objective is to thrive. It exists only to be an apple tree, but its branches provide homes for birds and its shade protection from the sun for all that rest under it. Its apples feed people and animals. Its presence in the world benefits those around it.

The context within which the apple tree lives is more important than the content of its achievements. It is connected to all life around it. If we are to thrive we need to focus on the context of our lives not the content of it. We need to try and thrive, as all life does.

Questioning Our Beliefs

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Beliefs are conclusions that we assume to be the truth. We often say that beliefs come from faith, but a belief unquestioned becomes a closed door. When we say we belong to a particular religion we are often identifying with a belief system which has institutionalised beliefs into a specific way of seeing the world.

Though the guidance from religions can be beneficial, if they go unexplored and unquestioned this is not a spiritual journey, it is a spiritual roundabout. Beliefs are important, particularly religious ones, because they deal with the nature of reality. However, I feel these beliefs should not go unquestioned. If beliefs are seen as a working model of how the world works, we can then repeatedly test it to see if it produces joy, happiness and fulfilment. These are the measure of a life well lived.

Reaching Your Potential

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

As human beings we often think that knowledge is one of the most important factors in life. Much is thought of degrees, the school we went to and being a knowledgeable person. However, every piece of knowledge is a conclusion that we decide is fixed.

This creates a mentality of I am right and others are wrong. It also limits our human potential, because each conclusion becomes a dead end. This leads to stagnation in life. If we were to think of pieces of knowledge as an impermanent understanding then we are always open to learning new things and to the knowledge of others, which might prove us wrong.

In order to reach other full potential we must be open to new experiences and new knowledge. Growth leads to fulfilment.

A State Of Flow

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There is a concept you may have heard before, the concept of flow. The state you are in when everything you are doing is effortless and time disappears, because you are fully engaged and really enjoying what you are doing.

In Taoist thinking this is referred to as Wu Wei, the art of non-action. To our Western ears this sounds paradoxical, but it has finally sunk in in my head recently and I finally get it. Wu Wei is flow, it is effortless action, it is doing, not worrying or planning or speculating, it is the act of just doing.

Living life through Wu Wei is, as Bruce Lee had said, being like water. He said, “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it.” As with many Eastern things, this is an art more than a science.

My advice would be to try to do everything that you are doing with joy, and then this flow state will be more accessible. As Sadhguru has said, “Anything you do joyfully is always effortless.”

Don’t Always Set Goals

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

In life we need to set goals, progress is an essential aspect of living a fulfilling life. If we had no progress we would feel a sense of stagnation and a lack of motivation. Goals are important, but sometimes they are a reflection of who we think we should be. There are goals that we think we need to achieve in order to be a success, after which we will be happy.

Success does not automatically equal happiness. If the success is in something that does not align with our fundamental values, for example, then it can never really be happiness inducing. What we need to understand is what happiness and success look like for us, based on our values, beliefs and ethics.

Sometimes we also set goals in order to feel like we are working towards success, but in fact we are avoiding figuring out what we really want. Doing the work of figure out who we are and what we want out of life can seem too difficult, so we take someone else’s model of success, or the model that is currently seen as popular, and tell ourselves it is what we want. In a way it is a form of procrastination.

So, set goals, but do the hard work of figuring out what you really want out of life first.

Feeling At Home

Happiness, Relationships

I have a few places where I feel like I belong. One of them is being at home with my wife and daughters. This is my home base, to use a baseball euphemism. To extend this euphemism further, I feel that when it comes to my religious beliefs my Unitarian chapel is my religious base. I feel at home in any Unitarian church or chapel.

When it comes to feeling connected to the natural world, being near trees and grass, flowers and all of the animals, birds and insects that share the Earth with us, feels like being in my natural world base.

You will have places and situations which are your bases, places where you feel a connection to something outside of yourself, and this is a very good thing. These bases are spaces in which we should spend time just being, and exploring all that it means to be a human being, and more than that, being the individual human being that we each are.

Meaning In Life

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We are all here connected to the interconnected web of all existence. We are connected to the tree that have become the wooden chair on which you sit, if you are, and the life that this tree fed and sheltered. We are connected to all that has come before us and all that will come after us, when we are again returned to the universal elements from which we are now composed.

These elements will be as useful in the grand fabric of the universe as they are now, in this very moment. All of this underpins whatever our beliefs may be. If we believe in God or we don’t, if we believe in an existence after we die, either in heaven or through reincarnation, or we don’t, we are all still part of the same ocean of existence.


According to the website ‘www.actionforhappiness.org  “Meaning in life can feel like a mysterious or esoteric topic, one that philosophers through the ages, and later psychologists, have tried hard to pin down. At its core, it’s a sense of being connected to, part of, and/or contributing to something bigger, beyond ourselves.  This might sound huge but it isn’t, we are all connected to the world around us in a myriad of ways which means there are many ways we can make a difference.”

Blaming Others

Happiness, Relationships

We blame others a lot for the negative things that happen to us, but we hardly blame others for the positive things that happen to us. Blame works both ways.

We have evolved to focus on the negative, because in a life or death situation we survive if we see the danger. This has an adverse effect now we have less danger in our lives. We are also fed negativity in the news, and the media generally, because it is what we pay attention to and it increases their number of views.

If we let ourselves only focus on the bad things that people do in our lives we tip out of balance and it wears away at us over the years. There needs to be balance. Blame people for the good they do more than the bad. Rebalance the way you see people and you will feel more blessed and less depressed.

Stronger Together

Happiness, Relationships, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When you get knocked down in life you have two choices. Stay down and give up or find a way to rise again. Sometimes we can rise alone, if we have the internal resources to do so, but usually we need the help of others through the relationships we have and new ones we form or the wisdom in books and online content.

It takes courage to stand after you fall, but often we should not try to stand alone, we should seek support. We are always stronger together. It is often seen as a weakness to ask for help, but it is the most courageous act we can do when we have been knocked down by life. We can stand alone again in the future, but take the support when it is available.

Being Courageous

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

For some, acting with courage it is getting out of bed and leaving their bedroom. For some it is standing on a stage and giving a speech. For some it is challenging the abusive behaviour of a loved one. For some it is stepping into the unknown. For some it is failing and trying again.

With every act of courage there are three things present, a decision, vulnerability and fear. There are many other aspects to courage, but these three are less recognised, especially the last two. For many, when we think of courage we think of being fearless, but you cannot have courage without fear. It is simply not courage if you are not scared.

You are also vulnerable when you act with courage, because you are either stepping into the unknown or you are letting others see who you really are; both of which make you vulnerable. The decision to act with courage is usually made in alignment with a person’s values, beliefs or ethics, or some combination of these.

There has to be a reason why an act of courage is needed, something more important than playing it small and being safe. When we act with courage we are also usually helping others directly or giving others around us permission to be courageous.

A courageous life is a life well lived.

The Key To Positive Interactions

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I used to work in a special needs school working young people with conditions like Autism and ADHD and I was thinking today about how we often assume everyone else experiences the world in the same way that we do. It is an assumption that we don’t necessarily decide on, it is just there.

Some Autistic people struggle to understand social rules, empathy and some find facial expressions difficult to process. Seeing the world as someone with Autism sees it is very different to someone who does not have Autism. We all also see through the lens of our own experiences as well. Our experience of the world is in fact unique to us. This means that it is unique for everyone else too.

So, when we interact with other people it is best to try and listen to understand the other person’s experience and how they understand that experience. Empathy is the key to successful relationships of any kind. If you understand where someone is coming from and why, then compassion is often the next step in connecting with them. If we assume we are always right, we will never learn anything new. Every interaction with another person is an opportunity to learn something new.

What Should We Unlearn?

Happiness

Our reality is largely what we are told that it is, from the explanations and examples of our parents to the education we receive to the religion or lack of religion that we follow. Our starting point for understanding our place in the world, or the universe, is received from other people.

It is only later in life, as our childhood becomes adulthood that we really start to question the foundations of understanding that we have been taught. Some understandings, particularly religious ones, it seems, can last a lifetime without being questioned.

There are many understandings of things, both religious and non-religious, that create divisions, which are further worsened by seeing a them and an us. More and more I am starting to believe that there are no divisions or categories or labels except the ones we create to understand the world and the universe, to give us a framework from which to go about our daily lives.

Don’t get me wrong, without such things we would not have science or medicine or a great many other things, but there is much, I think, that we have to unlearn about how we see each other and our place in the grand scheme of things.

Criticism Is Not Contribution

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When we criticise in order to gain social points. When we insult someone to be funny. When we try to tear someone down so we can be lifted up, we are not contributing positively to the world. When people put themselves out there on social media, online or on TV, often the Trolls come out with horrible comments; this is not helpful.

We all know trolling online is not a nice thing to do, but often we enjoy poking fun at what people wear or what they do. It has become acceptable to be unkind about people behind their back, because that person is not in our social group.

If we are going to move forward positively as a society and a human race we need to cut out the behaviour that drags others down and focus on supporting each other in living a fulfilling life.

Finding Your Calling

Happiness, Success

You may ask, how do we find our calling? Usually it is something that you enjoy so much that time passes unnoticed or it just feels right when you do it. It could be a job you have or a vocation you take up. It could be as simple as helping people read or making people laugh. Jim Carrey has said that his purpose in being a comedian, and then a comedic actor, was to free people from concern.

For some people their purpose or calling is coaching and for others it is saving lives, and the list goes on. A good way to find your calling is to try lots of different things, but it really helps to have figured out your values, beliefs and ethics first, as these will act as a compass to guide you towards your calling and will cut down on the time spent trying things out.

A person’s calling is not always something they are good at when they find out what it is they are called to do. Sometimes, it takes effort and consistent trial and error to get good at what it is you are called to do, but you will often have some level of experience and skill already, or at least the passion to do it. The thing to do is to have the courage to try and try again.

You Are What You Think

Happiness

It has been said that the mind is the source of all our sorrow, but it is also the source of all by our joy. It is true that we say things to ourselves that we would never say to anyone else, we are often our biggest critic. It is also true that the way we think about a situation influences how we understand it and how we feel about it.

If you say to yourself “this always happens to me” or “why me?” you are essentially making yourself into a victim, and a victim has no control over their life, they are helpless. We have thoughts like this all the time, through habit and having heard them when we were growing up. Often we are not even aware of the effect of saying such things out loud or to ourselves.

Our self image is also largely influenced by what we say and think to ourselves. We really are what we think. In the words of William Shakespeare, “…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Don’t Judge Others

Happiness, Success

In my role at work in a call centre, I spoke to a customer who had lots of notes from previous calls stating they were abusive. When I spoke to them I tried to remain open minded and at the start of the call the customer let me know about the mental health problems they had and how they can sometimes get very anxious.

The call had a positive outcome and the customer was very amicable. I made no assumptions and gave them time to speak and I remained polite throughout the call. If I had assumed that he was going to be rude or abusive I could have become defensive from the beginning of the call, giving the customer negativity to react against.

People generally feed off each other’s tone, body language and choice of words. So, the best thing to do is to assume the best in every person you meet and act accordingly. The interactions you will have with people will be more productive and more pleasant.

To Read Is To Grow

Happiness, Success

Many people don’t read on a regular basis. They read social media posts or snippets of news stories on their mobile phones, but reading seems to be something fewer people do for pleasure these days. I may be wrong, but that’s how it seems to me.

Reading has many benefits in terms of keeping the brain active, but the benefits beyond this depend on what you read. If we are to improve ourselves, to become wiser, kinder and happier, then what we read matters more than how often we read.

There are self development books and their are spiritual books, which are also self development books. Books that reach deep into you and show you what not to be and how to be in order to be happy and fulfilled in life. The wiser the content of what you read the happier you feel the more you read it. We all need progress, to varying degrees, and reading good books is the best way I know how to do so. To read is to grow.

Check out my recommended books on the Resources page.

It Shouldn’t Be Like That

Happiness, Success

Often we feel that a situation should or shouldn’t be like our preconceived ideas, and if the situation does not match our ideas we get upset, frustrated or angry. We do this a lot, we should all over the place.

Problems arise in life when we try to make reality as we want it to be. We share the world with a lot of people, animals and insects. Each with their own views and behaviours. Trying to control what happens is like telling water not to flow, it will flow, as that is it’s nature.

If we let go of judgements and preferences then we are better able to accept what arises in life and see the positives and the opportunities that each situation creates. We also feel less upset, frustrated and angry. If we accept each moment with gratitude then we feel blessed to be alive

Looking The Wrong Way

Happiness, Health

Water is evaporated from the oceans of the world and the water vapour becomes clouds. The clouds rain on the hills. The rain become rivers and the river make their way to the ocean. This, as we learned in school, is the water cycle.

When we look at a cloud we rarely think of the ocean. We think of the rain that is about to fall on us that will either ruin our day or water our garden, depending on how you look at it. Likewise, we don’t often think about the causes of the things that happen in our lives. We focus on the effects of what happens.

A lot of what happens in life are a result of our habits, our diet, whether we exercise, the way we think about things and how we react to things. All based on our habits. We have patterns of behaviour that mean we have similar experiences again and again in life, due to our habits.

The point is that we are looking at the rain and we should be looking at the ocean.

Generously Unlock Your Passion

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

I read this post by Seth Godin and the last line struck me and I made it the title of this blog post. Normally we talk about passion when someone is interested in a hobby or supporting a football team or something. Passion is also talked about when people start their own business or start writing a blog like this.

The point of generously unlocking your passion is that when we are generous with the capabilities we have, we often find things that we really enjoy doing. We also get the benefit of feeling good, because we have been generous.

A blog can also be good example of this, because you are using words to try and benefit someone else, who you will never meet. I suppose starting a YouTube channel could also be done in a similar way.

Success is often increased by the number of people you help. The more people you help the more opportunities and potential income you will receive. However, if you do it to get something back, you will be less successful than if you were being whole heartedly generous. You reap what you sow, so to speak.

Monday Blues

Happiness, Success

We often feel a sense of dread on Sundays, fearing what Monday might bring and we wish the week away, so we can enjoy the weekend, when it arrives. This push and pull that we self impose can cause us a lot of unnecessary stress. Our attitude to the working week largely comes from whether we are fulfilled by our job or not, but we are influenced by the cultural mindset that Mondays are bad and Friday evening and the weekend are good. We often think Thank God It’s Friday.

This way of looking at our working week is self defeating and can easily be avoided. As Viktor E. Frankl said in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” We have control over our attitude and the things we tell ourselves about the work we do and how we spend our time. We can look on the bright side, as they say.

I suggest picking something positive about the work you do. Something related to helping people is good, because it brings a sense of fulfilment and purpose. It also helps to have compassion for the people we work with and work for. We all suffer to less and greater degrees and to reduce someone else’s suffering is a wonderful thing to do. This may be something you focus on as part of a spiritual path or a humane philosophy, either way it will make you happier to make other happier. Everyone wins, and you will begin to look forward to Mondays, because it will provide more opportunities to help others.

The Power Of Being Courteous

Happiness, Success

People usually respond to you in the manner in which you address them. Courtesy can diffuse arguments and can uplift someone who is having a bad day. It has been said that courtesy is the lubrication that makes a business successful. I would say that it is the lubrication that makes society function, along with a number of other things.

So, open doors for people, smile and say good morning. If you’re getting a coffee get one for your colleague, friend or partner. There are thousands of opportunities every day to be courteous and considerate.

There are also people in our work places that often go unnoticed; the cleaners, the security guards, etc. Often we say good morning, but rarely stay for a chat. It means a lot to people if you see them and treat them as a human being.

A two minute chat will not disrupt your day and it could improve someone else’s day, and your own. Have time for people and talk about their lives, their problems and their aspirations. Put you mobile phone away and talk to people and you will be happier as a result.

Sometimes, Just Pay It

Happiness, Health

A few months ago I went to the dentist as a tooth was bothering me a little, but not too much. They found an infection in the root of the tooth and I was told that removing the tooth would be the best course of action. The cost was £65.

I decided to leave it as it was, because it wasn’t really bothering me. Towards the end of last year I suddenly had nausea and pain in my stomach. It lasted most of the day until I vomited around 9pm.

The pain in my stomach was so severe I ended up at Accident & Emergency (UK) at around 10pm. There was a 10 hour wait to be seen. By this time I had figured out it was the infection in my tooth that had leaked out and gone into my stomach.

I left the A&E and went home. I got the earliest appointment and paid the £65 to have my tooth removed. The point of the story, as with many situations in life, sometimes you should just pay the money and avoid what may happen further down the way.

This applies to fixing problems when they are small, not when the have been left to become bigger. The action does not have to be paying money, it is whatever fixes the problem, as soon as it arises.