Wednesday, August 3, 2011

12 Qualities of Happiness

Remember MySpace? Well my best-friend Miss J was going through her old blogs on myspace, remembering the "good ol' days" and so I decided to do the same.


My original MySpace was deleted years ago by MySpace and I was devestated I lost all my blogs, photos and memories... which to this day still upsets me! To be honest, after that, I never trusted or liked MySpace again!

Anyhow, here is something I found on her blog that really applies...


so.. my mum is reading this book.. and decided to send me bits of it...

12 Qualities of Happiness


1. Love. This is the wellspring of happiness, renewable and everlasting. We often think that being loved is the best feeling in the world, but it's the second best. The best is loving someone else. Love is the polar opposite of fear, emotionally and neurologically. Thus, it is the antidote to fear and the first step towards happiness.

2. Optimism. Optimism provides power over painful events. I used to think it was an attitude: seeing a glass half full instead of half empty. But that felt artificial, a mere trick of perception. Then I suffered the worst event of my life. My son died. I thought the light had left my life forever. However, in my despair, I realized that my son had left me a legacy of love that was mine forever and that if I could survive the loss of my child, nothing else could devastate me. When I realized this, I found that every hurtful event holds lessons, and that the more it hurts, the more you learn. Thus, I discovered the true meaning of optimism. Optimism is realizing that the more painful the event, the more profound the lesson. Once you bring this knowledge into your heart, you can never look at any event as all bad. Optimism gives you power over fear of the future and over regret for the past.

3. Courage. This is your strongest weapon for overcoming the split-second power of the fear system. You can't rise above fear without courage because fear is hardwired into your neural circuitry. There is no such thing as a fear-ectomy. If fear is eternally programmed into your brain, though, so is courage. It comes from the neocortex and is a product of the spirit, the intellect, and the higher emotions of love and generosity. It is nature's natural balance for the fear that has helped us survive. It's the quality that allows us to thrive.

4. A sense of freedom. Nothing fills the soul like freedom. Freedom is choice, and choice is what makes us human. When we choose, we define who we are. Everyone has the power to make choices, but unhappy people don't know they have it. They think it's only for the rich. It's not. I've met a thousand rich people who didn't feel free. Choice is available to anyone who has the courage to exercise it.

5. Proactivity. Happy people participate in the own destinies and forge their own happiness. They don't wait for events or other people to make them happy. They're not passive victims.

6. Security. Happy people know that nothing over time lasts-not money, not approval, not even life itself. So they don't measure security with a calendar or a calculator. They simply like who they are. They're not slaves to popularity, longevity, or financial status. They know that security is an inside job.

7. Health. Happiness and health are interdependent. It's hard to be happy if you don't feel healthy, and its hard to be healthy if you're not happy. Of special importance for happiness is healthy mood chemistry. You can have a happy life and not even know it if you're tortured by faulty mood chemistry. An imbalance of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, for example, can mask the happiness that lies beneath it.

8. Spirituality. Happy people arent' afraid to go beyond the boundaries of their own lives. They let go, and welcome extraordinary experiences. They have markedly less fear of death. They're not concerned about dying -- they're concerned about not living.

9. Altruism. Unhappy people are usually too self-absorbed to be altruistic. But happy people know how good it feels. It connects you to others, gives you purpose, and gets you outside yourself.

10. Perspective. Unhappy people tend to see things in absolute terms and often can't distinguish small problems from big ones. Happy people see shades of gray, and they know how to prioritize their problems and turn them into possibilities. They don't lose sight of life's big picture during the bad times.

11. Humor. Humor is a shift of perception that gives people the guts to go on when life looks its worst. There is an abandonment in it that is close to enlightenment. It lifts suffering off the heart and hands it to the intellect and spirit, which alone have the power to heal it.

12. Purpose. Happy people know why they're here on earth. They're doing the things they were meant to do. If they died today, they would be satisfied with their lives.

after reading it... I think I've realized part of my problem as of late....

I've lost my happy.

I really liked reading this for a few reasons. One, it is so true, every single thing in there can determine happy or not. Two, it was sent to my best-friend by her mum, who is no longer with us, but it shows her struggle to find happiness and share it. Three, I have been feelng down lately and really feel like this is a good pick-me-up.

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