Paths to Happiness [2]

Positive Attitude
We started on the 'Paths to Happiness' yesterday, and I said building the foundation for enduring happiness requires a positive self esteem. If 'loving yourself' and building a positive image of yourself prepares the foundation for happiness, then maintaining a positive attitude, at all times, builds a lasting structure on that foundation.

We all know that it is easy to 'feel good' about yourself and what you doing when things are going as planned, but what about when things get real bad. The real test of your faith in the self comes when failure hits you hard on the face; when something you've devoted your best to, suddenly comes crashing. While positive attitude is vital in our everyday life, it becomes even more important in situations like this.

People who have a positive view of life, who are optimistic enough to take everything life serve them; good or bad, with a smile and still move on, are the real 'happy people'. Someone once said 'the ability to see the good in every situation is worth more than a million dollars'.

However, positive thinking is not a thing you achieve overnight; it's a habit you have to develop. It takes faith and strong will to remain positive when things aren't so good, but it helps. When you can see a glass of water as 'half full', instead of ‘half empty’ and that, it is 'darkest just before dawn', a deeper understanding of life dawns on you. You feel empowered to take control of your life, and whatever happens, you'll still find the strength to believe in your life.

People that have developed a positive attitude towards life don't spend their life crying over failures; they learn from it and move on. They don't expect people to show them the path to follow; they take their lives as their responsibility and whatever happens, they don't blame anybody. They live their life 'one day at a time’; they don't worry about tomorrow’s challenges and refuse to cry over yesterday's failures. And the result is, they are always happy, healthy and successful.

Words For Today

Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soulpower to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different.
Dr. Frank Crane

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Paths to Happiness [1]

Happiness is one word that has come to mean several things; while to some people, it is commonplace, to others, it is an illusion. Whatever your understanding of happiness is, it's been proved severally that people with a happy disposition live a better and more fruitful life. In fact, it has been shown, in several studies, that health and general wellbeing are greatly influenced by individual characteristics. 'Happy people fall sick less often' is a statement I found on a medical site.

Late in the 1990s, researchers at the National Institute on Aging, after a ten year study, found that, irrespective of changes in marital status, age, job or finances, people with a happy disposition would still be be living a happy life after a decade. That is, no matter what life throw at them, people that have learnt to be happy, will always have a happy life. That's an astonishing fact. The question is; 'can we learn to be happy?' or 'are people just born with happiness?'
Wherever you are in life, and whatever you might be going through, you can decide to be happy and remain happy. Within every one of us lie the power, the will and the resources to lead a happy life. Problem is, some people don't just make use of what they have, while some others search the wrong place for it. We have all been conditioned to think that more riches, more luxury or a better job will bring us happiness. And unfortunately, it takes some people several years of following the wrong path to learn that they have been misled.

Happiness is a result of the mix of several habits or characteristics we develop over the years. Happy people everywhere exhibit these characteristics and just by learning these habits, you could find lasting happiness. These blends of habits vary, depending on your point of view, and ranking them on a scale of importance would be difficult. But in the next four posts, I shall be discussing these 'habits of happy people' one after the other.

SELF ESTEEM

Of the 'habits of happy people' my first pick is self esteem. It is sacrosanct that you'll never find happiness if you do not love, trust and believe in your self. Self love or self esteem is one of the most important prerequisites for a happy life. Sometimes, I start my day by listening to Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love", and where I feel most inspired is where she said "if I fail, if I succeed, at least I've lived as I believed". That is the highest point of self esteem. You must take control of your life, you must realize that the most important thing in life is not failure or success; it is the ability to decide what you want to make of your life and to follow that path.

When you feel that you are in control of your life, that you are following the path you have chosen for yourself and doing what you want to do; you feel that immense inner love for yourself and your self esteem will soar. And, most importantly, you would have laid the foundation for a happy life. People who feel their live is being controlled, often feel dejected, depressed and used. They have very poor image of themselves, want to blame everybody for the problems they have and spend the best time of their lives wishing they could do better with their life. You don't want to follow that path.

Decide today to love yourself, to take control of yourself and determine where and what you want to do with your life. If you haven't learnt anything from everything above, at least, know that 'your life's your business'. It's your business to be happy, go work on it today.

Words for Today

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.
The laws of Manu

I have failed many times, and that's why I am a success.
Michael Jordan (1963 - )

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'NOW' is All You Have

Life should be lived one day at a time. Our lives would be better and free of those debilitating worries, if only we learn to enjoy every passing moment of our life. There would always be challenges to face tomorrow, and there would always be yesterday's failure to brood about, but ask yourself, if you spend all your time dwelling on these fears, anxieties and failures, when are you going to live your life?

Learning to live in the present requires physical efforts, because, by nature, the mind will always worry, unless you train it not to. How do you train yourself to be conscious of 'now' and nothing else?

First, you must learn to take stock of your thinking. Concern yourself, always, with what is happening around you, NOW. Consciously monitor what you are thinking, for a start, every moment in time, each time you find yourself worrying [some would say thinking] of what 'could happen' or what 'has happened'; stop the thinking process and direct your attention to the present. With time, you will see that you can subconsciously control what you think.

Two, develop a positive outlook on life. Learn to see the bright side of things, even when everything looks so hopeless. Refuse to accept false/negative realities. And when things get 'real bad', continually remind yourself that 'worrying' about it, won't change any thing.

Three, refuse to dwell on the failures of yesterday, it's not just worth it. Everyday and in everything you do, put your very best, if it succeeds, learn from your success and move on; if it fails, learn from your mistakes and try again. Life's too short to be spent on yesterday's failures or tomorrow’s problems.

In everything you do, remember, always, that NOW is all you have; yesterday is gone, forever, and tomorrow might never come. Make the best of NOW.

Words for Today

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt

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The Power in You

Napoleon Hill was damn right when he titled one of his best books 'Think and Grow Rich'. 'Thinking' the right 'thoughts' can indeed propel you onto wealth and fullness of life, if properly harnessed. But the right 'thoughts' won't bring you wealth alone; your entire life - finances, career, relationship and all, would do a lot better with positive and creative thinking. Your mind is the real power in you.

'Winners don't quit' is a popular maxim often thrown around, have you ever stopped to ponder the meaning of this statement? It means that only those who truly and practically believe in their dreams and in their ability to actualize these dreams, not minding the harshness of reality, would enjoy lasting success.

In most cases, 'quitters', are people who fail to harness their real power; people who cannot crystallize the beauty of their dreams in their minds, people who lack, or fail to develop the ability to believe in themselves and trust in their strengths. In short, people fail because they expect to fail. Search deep within you, you would realize that each time you failed at something, you were truly expecting failure; you were using the power in you against yourself. I don't know of a better definition for failure.

Some people would argue that realities sometimes defy optimism; that there are times you just can 'go on'. I would say reality exist on various planes, the only constant factor in life is your perception of, and attitudes towards life.

If for you, everything is bad, poor, gloomy and always end in failure; you would always see the 'bad' side of things as 'real' and failure at everything you set your hands on. But if you chose to live on a higher plane, if you believe there is good in everything, if you can hold a positive attitude no matter what life serve you, then you'll always find success, happiness and fulfillment with everything you do.

Funny enough, a pessimistic attitude creates its own false realities. With the wrong attitude, one challenging day is like a year of hardship. When you allow your mind to dwell on the problems before you, instead of finding a solution, the problems become larger than life and finding a way out appears to be impossible.

But with the right attitude, challenges are less intimidating, the mind can think clearly and it becomes easier to plan and execute a way out of the problem. The power in you is strong and effective, it can work for or against you; it's your choice!

The only time we fail in life is when we truly and fully believe we have failed.


Words for Today
Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.
Brian Adams

To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.
Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

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Living Life Positively

So much has been said about the benefits of developing a positive attitude, passing through life with hopes, aspirations and an unending happiness, and about the powers of motivations on our quality of life. But we all know it is quite easy to commit pen to paper and pour out hundreds of motivational words; it's a whole different ball game in the real world.

The realities of life are sometimes too harsh and daunting for the average human being. I can tell you a lot about the challenges of life. Growing up in Africa with all its challenges; poverty, corruption, civil wars, HIV/AIDS, just to name a few, definitely prepares you for just about anything. I used to tell my friends that 'if you can live in Africa, then you can survive successfully in any part of the world'. In my over two decades of existence, I have learnt enough to live a century. But the most important lesson life has taught me is that your life would only be meaningful and worth living, if you learn to live positively, with hopes and happiness, irrespective of the realities you face.

When I was younger, I often wonder why people in the wealthy nations of the West still suffer such high rates of depression and suicides. Now, I understand quite well that your life is not shaped by what you have around you, but what you are inside. No amount of wealth, luxury and comfort will give you a happy life if you can't find happiness within you. At the same time, no degree of poverty and other life challenges would dampen your spirit, if your soul finds happiness in itself. There will always be challenges in life, but within you lie the power to overcome everyone of them, if you would just reach deeper.

Within every one of us lies the power to live positively and happily. Life becomes richer when you can look forward to tomorrow without fears or worries. The first step towards living a positive life is to let go of your fears and anxieties; they are an unnecessary burden the heart is forced to carry. Someone once defined FEAR as 'False Expressions Appearing Real'. You must realize that there is nothing real about fear; it is a creation of the mind, a byproduct of worries.

Look at it this way; worrying about something won't change that thing. You won't get richer just by worrying about and fearing poverty; neither would worrying about a bad relationship make it better. Throw away your worries, and with it goes fear. Instead, look through your problems with happiness, decide what must be done to help the situation and get to work on it. That way, you would be directing energies you would have wasted on worries and fear onto a constructive course. While this can be easily said, it is much difficult to practice; we all need help building a positive life. The sole purpose of this blog is to provide that 'help'. I'll be posting daily inspirational messages, videos and audios here. With this, I hope to help a few people, make a few friends and in the end help myself build a better and more positive life. Life's richer and better when you pass happiness around.

Words for Today

The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds can change the outer aspects of their lives.
James William

A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.
Edward Chapin

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