Happiness
- Although happiness is different for different people, it is "additive" for all of us. It is the collection of many things.
- Although a majority of us face similar challenges and much the same fears, there are many things that we can do to add happiness to our lives.
- Happiness does not just happen by itself. You have to make it happen, little by little, each and every day.
Widen your horizons:
- Always do new things.
- New experiences add color and happiness to our lives.
- Discover and pursue your true interests.
- We are all creatures of habit. Changing our habits can be the hardest and often the most rewarding things we ever do.
House:
- Display many photos of family and loved ones throughout the house. Change these pictures periodically.
- Display your kid's artwork. Change which artwork is displayed each month.
- When you put something on display, have a story to tell about each item. Don't just display random pretty things. The real beauty of items is their personal meaning to you.
Hospitality:
- Invite friends, family, and coworkers to your house for lunch, barbeque, or to a sports bar for the upcoming game.
- Host parties.
- Make dinner for family and friends.
Children:
- Love your children. Read to them and teach them.
- Go to festivals and events together.
- Show photo albums and family movies to the kids and relatives.
- Play board games, card games, and electronic games with the kids
Communicate:
- Talk and laugh with friends
- Write to your friends.
- Laugh with friends.
Kindness:
- Kindness rewards the giver as well as the receiver.
- If you make someone happy (friends, neighbors, pets, ...), then you will be happy too.
- Helping, inspiring and supporting others will add happiness to your life.
- Give to a meaningful cause.
Stay Positive:
- Think of the things that you are grateful for, and your reasons to be thankful.
- Recognize the value of yourself and others
- Forgive yourself and others for past shortcomings and focus on self-improvement.
- Let our failures be our inspiration, and do not let them weigh our hearts down.
Appreciate Simple things:
- Find the central beauty in each day
- Time relaxing outside
- Singing along with the radio
- Walks
- Day trips
- Bird watching
- Open windows, nice views, bright sunny rooms, and fresh air
- Warm foods
- A great cup of coffee or tea.
- A good novel
- A glass of red wine
- Bring home a new flowering plant
- Snuggling with your darlings
- Walking with your dog in the park, or letting your dog retrieve the ball.
- Going swimming with your kids
- Ice Cream, watermelon, nuts, strawberries, dark chocolate, fresh-baked cookies, fresh-baked bread, fresh squeezed lemonaide
- Popcorn and a movie
- Holding hands
- Grilling on the patio
- Swinging on a swing or sitting on a swinging porch bench
- Calling a friend from the past
- Feeling good after a healthy workout
- Candlelight bubble bath
- The first snowfall of winter
- Thinking how much you love someone in your heart
- A shoulder massage and back scratch.
- Listening to a purring cat or chirping birds.
- Showering / bathing with your sweetheart.
- Coffee on the patio on Sunday morning.
- Bringing kids and dogs for car trip to get food or take a walk.
- Smile more. It's contagious. :)
- Go out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner with your dearest ones.
- Cooking dinner for your dearest ones.
- Bike riding with your friends.
- Watching your favorite sports teams.
- Libraries, Museums, Volunteering.
- Being greeted by your pet
- Winning at your favorite electronic game.
- Eating outside on the patio.
- Play your favorite sports (Frisbee, Volleyball, Tennis, Golf, ...)
- Feeding wild birds, pigeons, ducks, chipmonks, ....
- Netflix.
Don't live in fear:
- If you live in fear, you may live alone and may not live at all.
- Don't fear happiness, such as having pets in your life, because of a previous sad experiences with pets in the past.
- Don't fear happiness, such as having relationships in your life, because of a previous sad experiences with relationships in the past.
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Stay Organized:
- Maintain a nicely organized house.
- Used wisely, your smartphone can give you control over the 1000s of life's demands.
- Make sure your house is clean enough that you are comfortable to invite guests.
- Items are comforting if they are in the right place, otherwise they are disconcerting
Beauty:
- Artistry can touch our hearts. Bring beauty into your house: family pictures, sunshine, color, plants, flowers, candles (be safe!), silks, and incense.
Holidays:
- Let the spirit of the holidays in.
- Seasonal decorations
Stay Entertained and Appreciate Arts:
Live Today and in your World
- Live in the moment. Life is today.
- Live in your world and be proud of it. Your world is your children, your spouse, your love, your parents, your house, your grandparents, pets, uncles, aunts, friends, nieces, newphews, cousins, roomates, your values, and more.
- Be inclusive and dynamic and bring happiness to the people in your world. It will come back to you.
Organize and Participate:
- Being aware of activities, festivals, and run/walks and participate in them.
- Actively schedule time for fun things.
- Invite friends and people that interest you to everything that you do. Always try to widen this group.
- Know the most interesting bars, nightclubs, venues, etc. and what to invite people to.
- Bring happiness to the world and you will be a magnet.
- We are heavily influenced by what we know at a particular instant.
Companionship:
- For most of us, happiness is companionship, talking to people, relatives, friends, loves.
- With all of life's endless complexity, much of happiness is largely driven by our relationships with family, friends, and loves.
- Find people with common interests
- Bring dogs, cats, and birds into your life for yourself and your kids.
- Pull family and friends closer. Call your parents. Do chores for your parents. Say goodnight and hug your children.
- Find circles where you are accepted and respected. Surround yourself with kind people that have good hearts, and avoid mean people completely.
- Play games (Pictionary, Card Games, ...) with friends and family.
Friends:
- Nurture close relationships.
- Find friends and companions that have real empathy for other people and for you.
- Be willing to create new friends, and make friends with and help your neighbors and collegues.
Love and Relationships:
- We are most alive when we are in love.
- Love can be all encompassing. Hugs, kisses, romance, and being loved and appreciated are the happiest of times.
- Touch and intimacy create feelings of reassurance and bonding.
- Within relationships, add physical reinforcements hugs, kisses, intimacy, when and where appropriate.
- Say goodnight to those you love.
- If both you and your partner care about each other and the relationship, then your life will almost certainly be happy.
- Finding a kind person is important. Love is empathy. A willingness to care about the other person. Avoid one way relationships and people without empathy.
- Our heart yearns to be loved and appreciated. This need permeates our lives and thoughts. We want to feel wanted and needed.
Interests:
- Find your interests and then find ways to pursue those interests.
Career:
- Have a career that provides interesting work and rewarding opportunities.
- It is important to feel useful and productive.
Money
- Money can be re-assuring, but is not completely connected to happiness.
- Avoid debt which can be very stressful. Don't attempt to fill voids in your life with compulsive reckless buying.
- By watching the crowds on black friday, it would seem that being happy is simply having lots of stuff. However a house full of junk is disconcerting and annoying. Being organized is often just as as important as having nice things.
Travel:
- Travel can add memories for a lifetime.
- Be a very smart travelor and use very good planning to get the most from your travel dollar.
- Your trip needs to be easily affordable for you.
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Learning:
- Learning is fun, rewarding, and very satisfying
- Have new experiences
- Expand your mind
- Teach and be taught. Both Learning and teaching is greatly rewarding. we are naturally curious
- johnson county park and rec classes
- olathe park and rec classes
Clothes, Comfort, and Confidence:
- Dress nice, look nice, feel nice.
- Stay cool in summer and warm in winter
- At home your favorite tee-shirt and jeggings
- Create opportunities for a "dress up" occasions
Eating:
- Cook dinner for and eat each meal with your spouse, your children, and with pleasant company.
- Eat healthy foods so you can always eat enough to not feel hungry with out adverse affects.
- Good food. Wine
Health:
- Health is everything. Take care of yourself so you can do the activities that you want to do in life.
- Our physical health affects our mental health.
- Your health will have a great influence on your success, opportunities, freedom, relationships, and actractiveness.
- Eat healthy everyday so you will be happy with your appearance and so you will have energy to succeed each day.
- Exercise and avoid self-distructive habits.
- Get enough rest.
Faith:
- Find happiness in going to church
- Convert your faith into positive actions.
- Volunteer and be there for someone in need.
Self-Esteem:
Role Model:
- Live according to your values.
- Believe that good will conquer evil.
- Inspire, instruct, and set a good example in everything you do.
Successfulness:
- Feeling successful has a lot to do with feeling happy.
- Take pride in each thing that you accomplish.
- Success is a "additive" process that involves thousands of decisions over time. We are all creatures of habit. The secret of success is to create good habits and to occasionally and safely be willing to change your life.
Success and failure can best be visualized by two long straight sticks joined together at one end (representing today) and separated into a "V" (representing the future).
Near the joined point the impact of making a good decision appears to be nearly the same as a bad decision.
But over time, the impact of good decisions versus bad decisions grows larger and larger in a similar fashion to the separation of the two sticks.
- If you can capture and act on your good ideas, you are very likely to be successful over time. Success is usually achieved by a series of hundreds of little victories.
- Talking and listening is power. Friends, family, neighbors, classmates, and others can often provide helpful ideas and suggestions on thousands of topics.
| positive result | negative result | how to succeed |
|---|
| organization | chaos | day to day efforts to get organized. |
| wealthy | in debt | day to day financially smart decisions |
| health | not healthy | day to day decisions to eat healthy and live healthy |
| happy | miserable | day to day decisions to build happiness |
Timeliness:
- Manage your time effectively and stay ahead of the game.
- If we are caught up we are happy, being behind is frustrating.
Avoid Depression:
- It is important to ward off depression, loneliness, bordom and isolation for your emotional and physical health.
In the U.S.,
suicides are twice as common as homocides.
Avoid Envy and Jealousy:
- Don't Compare Yourself To Others
- Be grateful for what you have. Accept the fact that the world will never be fair
- Thinking that other people have it easier or are doing better is counterproductive.
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