"Events will take their course, it is no good of being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account."
- Euripides, 480-406 BC
"There is only on way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."
Epictetus, 55-135 AD
"Remember, happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have;
it depends soley on what you think."
Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955 AD
I've seen some books on happiness. One I read not long ago is Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff. It is 320 pages! I'm here to tell you that being happy is not that hard.
Want to be happy? Think happy thoughts. It's that easy. Want to be pissed off? Think pissed off thoughts. It's that easy. There's only one rule: you must choose consciously and probably for a while until you can get it down so well you can do it unconsciously.
I can tell you things I do to help with having happy thoughts. I'll give you just a few: Don't read the newspaper as there are so few happy thoughts in there. I am conditioning myself to respond rather than react to events or something said. This gives me a few milliseconds to think and choose what I will do or not do. When people tell me about something bad that happened they heard on the news or that someone told them or an accident they saw, etc., I don't encourage them by reacting, but I say, "oh, okay," or something like that as if it is not important. I think of people I love and smile or I will think of something fun and smile. And, last, I smile a lot.
It's totally up to you. You get to choose or have it go via auto pilot. It doesn't matter how big a situation is or how small, you get to choose what you will think about it and how you will respond or react.
Take a large one like getting fired. I've been fired at least twice that my memory recalls. The most recent was in 1997. I was fired from a sales manager job that I held for 10 years. Guess what? It was one of the happiest days of my entire life!! That led me to other opportunities that I never would have come across. It was a powerful and very positive change for me. I was thrilled because there was six months of very uncomfortable tension between me and my boss leading up to the firing. Yet, I was committed to not quitting though that would have been very easy for me. I thank him in my mind all the time for firing me. I am forever grateful for that decision and his courage to do it.
If you're in sales and you're working a deal and the deal goes south, thank the prospect for the opportunity. Practice is good, but missing this sale could very well lead you to something so much greater. W Clement Stone wrote a book titled, The Success System That Never Fails, and in that book he says to get excited when someone says "no." It's a time when many a salesperson would be unhappy, but W Clement Stone says to get excited!
You're in charge and you get to choose what you want to think about anything. Choosing happy thoughts will not only feel better, but attract more things to be happy about! That's a good thing.
Come On Get Happy, Come On Get Happy . . .
Spread Some Joy Today--No Seriousness Today. Childlike Is Good. . .
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