Happiness is knowin' you've done a good job, whether it's professional or for another person.

Elvis

Since the things we do determine the character of life, no blessed person can become unhappy. For he will never do those things which are hateful and petty.”

Aristotle

I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God."

Anne Frank

When you are happy, your mind is clear to think and care of others. So paradoxically, to be happy is the most altruistic and generous thing that you can do.

I learned a long time ago that if you're going to throw a club in anger, throw it in front of you so you won't have to go back and pick it up.

President Ronald Reagan

One of the sources of real happiness in daily life, lies in companionship with the noble in nature, the good in heart, the broad-minded persons of spiritual aspirations. Sweet is their speech; wise are their words; and highly dignified and self-controlled is their conduct. To be in their presence, is to be peaceful. The vibrations around them are elevating. The observation of their conduct betters our own. To develop in ourselves their qualities of nature, is to find our life enriched in its resources for peace and happiness.

Association with people of God-experience and universal Love, is a great source of happiness. In their presence, something in us feels the divine Presence. While conversing with them, we discover that we are conversing with that which is the Divine in ourselves, but with which we could establish no communication until we came into the presence of these spiritual individuals. When we are with them, the real soul-happiness, the fundamental and superior happiness, is experienced by us.

According to Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence), you were born with the genetic makeup to be "very happy, or reasonably content, or chronically dissatisfied." Positive emotions have been shown to coincide with higher levels of activity on the left side of the brain's prefrontal lobes. A key player seems to be the neurotransmitter dopamine, which carries messages between brain cells. Scientists estimate that half of your mood derives from your happiness "set-point." Depending on your genes, you may have a natural enthusiasm for life, deriving pleasure from ordinary activities, or you may require unusual adventures, white-knuckle thrills. But regardless of what makes you happy -- a quiet walk or a jungle safari -- after the initial high, you return to your happiness set-point.

Try exploiting one of social psychology's key principles: Act yourself into reality. Acting cheerful can help trigger positive emotions. Adopt the stance of being a confident, happy, successful person and you will grow into the role. A number of techniques can help:

In her books and workshops, Dr. Jeannette Vos, teaches people to change their "state" using music. Start by playing music that matches your present mood and then gradually change the music to reflect the mood you desire. Colour can also be used to improve mood: warm, bright, active colours help relieve depression and neutral colours tend to alleviate anxiety and tension.

We always create challenges within our physical relationships when our cellular balance is no longer relative to nature, earth, and the universe. To understand the essential secrets of happiness we must first understand our dual soul design as the multiple levels that we live in our physical relationships. Once we become conscious of the multiple levels of our relationships in our dual soul growth, we can identify and appreciate the degrees and patterns which we create in our everyday life to expose ourselves to the nuances of each relationship level in our evolution. When we destroy our relationship with nature, earth, and the universe, we will destroy our physical relationships without realizing what we are doing or why. Our addiction to drugs, foods, negative thinking and behaviours is secondary to the chemical starvation that is taking place within us on a cellular level. We will not be able to heal ourselves until we gain the knowledge to understand the truth that we are self-healing organisms. This knowledge gives us the confidence to create the changes we need to create as our next step in evolution as individuals and as a collective body of human beings. Kathy Oddenino

This one comes as a bit of a surprise, but there is tremendous satisfaction in being competent, and joy in completing our assigned tasks. One of the great sources of happiness is to do work that is worthy of you, and to do it well.

Be happy. Talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours.... never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness.... Your success and happiness lie in you.... The great enduring realities are love and service.... Resolve to keep happy and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

Helen Keller

Persisting and growing happiness is the natural result of the development in ourselves of the essentially moral qualities and characteristics. A heart that is full of resentment, a nature that is smitten by jealousy, a mood that is overcome by anger, cannot be happy. Therefore the development of moral nature is indispensable for the experience of happiness in daily life.

Express your affection, appreciation, friendship and warmth to those around you, and they will almost always respond in the most amazing ways! Be generous…it pays great dividends!

One great practice for spiritual happiness is to strive, in every situation, to deal primarily with God. For example when a potential employer is interviewing you for a job, or when you're hoping a landlord will rent you that apartment, instead of only asking or begging these folks in your mind, on paper, or in person to give you what you want, first ask God. Keep your attention focused on the divinity that expresses through every person and circumstance, and you will be uplifting every interaction into the arena of spiritual happiness.

Ask God for what you want, and ask God to guide you to want what is best. Trust God as the depths from whence all outer situations arise. Nothing ultimately comes from people or circumstances anyway; everything ultimately arises from the divinity - called by many names, including God - that creates and acts through all people and circumstances. Beneath, behind, and throughout all things is God, the dreamer of this dream of life. Therefore, you can always choose to address the God in anything and everything.

Blessed is your simple goodness! Every day, every hour finds you born into happy new feelings and new thoughts. Always elevated and new in your inner attitudes, in your moods, in your way of reacting to things and persons, you remain so peaceful and happy.

To be happy, most of us must also be growing, expanding, learning and challenging ourselves. Read, listen, adapt and stretch to accommodate new ideas and new information.

Ultimately, our happiness depends not on what we have, but on how we think and feel about what we have. Although this is an obvious fact of life, few people truly harness the power of their minds to practice intentional happiness.

Once you understand that your mind is the source of happiness, you have an opportunity to consciously take back the reins of your experience of life. You can look at anything that happens, and think, "How can I grow from this? How can I interpret this in a positive way? How can I love, embrace, and make the best of this situation?"

You can enjoy the many benefits that come from intelligent, intentional optimism, including the bright and refreshing sun shower of spiritual happiness. With the blessing of your mind, you'll approach life with willingness, inspiration, and joyful ease. Happiness will follow you like a cute little puppy.

Many people believe that the stress-filled teen years, the crisis midlife years, or the declining years of old age are unhappy times. But after interviewing people of all ages, researchers find that no time of life is happier or unhappier.

In response to life events, people do have crisis times. But not at any predictable age. When you look at people's self-reported happiness across the age spectrum--or their rates of depression or suicide or divorce--you don't find so much as a blip on the curve during the supposed early-40s crisis years. And survey after survey shows that, for most people, the empty nest is actually a happy place--often where marital bliss finds renewal.

Now more than ever, many people believe more money would make them happier. In 1970, 39 percent of entering college students said "becoming well-off financially" was an important life goal. By last fall, that rose to 74 percent. And many adults think that 10 or 20 percent more income would make them happier.

Certainly, it's no fun being hungry or homeless. But once above the poverty line, increases in income have surprisingly little relation to personal happiness. There is only a modest tendency for people who make more money to be more contented with what they make. A person's contentment with their income predicts their happiness much better than does their actual income. Happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you have.

That does reveal our remarkable capacity to adapt to changing life circumstances by recalibrating our expectations. People who win a lottery get an initial jolt of joy. But with time, life returns to its normal balance of satisfaction. And that gives us hope that should the recession force us to simplify our lives, we'll in time recover our sense of well-being. It also encourages us to look to more genuine sources of well-being.

PEOPLE living in the countryside are happiest, according to a survey.

And the findings which say people in rural areas feel safer and have a greater sense of community came as another study revealed the 10 secrets of happiness.

The bad news is that the main factor is something we have no control over it's in our genes. You are more likely to be born happy if your parents are.

The survey for New Scientist magazine says getting married is the second most important factor, with studies from 42 countries consistently finding married people are happier than those who are single.

Third in the happiness league is a wide circle of friends, followed by doing a good turn for someone and finding God or some other faith.

Scientists say believing in a god or the afterlife can give people purpose and reduce the feeling of being alone.

Sixth in the happiness poll is to want less. New Scientist said: ``Wise men down the ages have said that curbing your desires is a surer route to happiness than a fat bank balance.''

Good looks are the seventh most important factor when it comes to happiness. Scientists say the most attractive faces are highly symmetrical and there is evidence from animal research that symmetry reflects good genes and a healthy immune system.

Growing old gracefully is the eighth factor. Psychologists reckon old people are happy because they may expect life to be hard and have learned to deal with it.

Ninth in the happiness chart is earning more money but only up to a point.

It seems absolute income doesn't make much difference once you have enough to meet your basic needs. Instead, the key seems to be whether you have more than your friends, neighbours and colleagues.

Intelligence is the least important factor, according to the study. The experts believe brighter people could have higher expectations and so be dissatisfied with anything less than the highest achievements.

Meanwhile, in the city and rural living study, it emerged that four of the top five places to live were in the countryside.

The purpose of life is simply happiness. The feeling of happiness is what it feels like to be perfectly human.

To be alive and human without believing or experiencing the problems, doubts and fears that we usually pay so much attention to.

It is in our moments of happiness that we can access our full capabilities. When we doubt or fear we are limiting our capabilities.

Life, energy or whatever term you wish to call it comes to us and flows through us continually. We are not the closed off, fixed beings that we think ourselves to be.

We are, at the subatomic level, a continually changing, flowing of energy. Every time that you dust your house, you see parts of what was your skin yesterday.

Now it has left you and begun to be recycled for another use. Tomorrow the particles that currently make up that hated wrinkle, will be dust around your house.

Be strong so that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk of health, happiness and prosperity to everyone you meet. Make all of your friends feel that there is something special in them. Look at the bright side of every situation and make your optimism come true. Think only the best, work only for the best and expect the best of others. Be as enthusiastic of the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Be too confident for worry, too strong for fear and too happy to permit the presence of trouble. Be your own glorious self and believe that in being true to yourself you can never do wrong by others.

Don't Let Others Tell You What Will Make You Happy

Once, an old man, a boy, and a donkey were travelling from one town to another. They decided that the boy would ride the donkey, and the old man would walk alongside. While moving down the road, they passed a group of townsfolk, who began speaking among themselves, saying what a shame it was for such a strong, young boy to be riding on the donkey, leaving this old, frail man to walk alongside. The boy overheard their words, and, feeling ashamed, suggested that the old man should ride the donkey, and that he would walk alongside.

A while later, they passed another group of people, who began commenting on how shocking it was to see this man riding the donkey, while making such a small boy walk. The two overheard their comments, and decided that they should both just walk and put an end to all these opinions.

Eventually, they passed some more villagers, who began to laugh at how silly it was for these two to be walking when they had a perfectly good donkey to ride. The man and the boy decided that maybe the critics were right, and they decided to both ride the donkey.

Soon, they ran into another group of people who were aghast to see such animal cruelty. What a load to put on this poor little creature! Hearing their words, the man and boy felt terrible. They wanted to give the poor donkey a break, and decided to carry the donkey for the rest of their way.

While crossing a bridge, they lost their grip on the animal, and he fell into the river, to be seen no more. The moral of this story: If you try to please everyone, you will eventually lose your ass!

Bad weather is not bad, when your mood is happy. Bad people are not bad, when your mood is happy. Bad circumstances are not bad, when your mood is happy. Bad home and bad business are not so bad, when your mood is happy.

When the mood is bad, even the good weather, good people, good circumstances, look bad. Everything is happy when your mood is happy. A happy mood can improve bad conditions, and make sunshine where gloom prevails. Therefore, continue to keep your mood inspired, illuminated, delighted, - by great thoughts, noble feelings, a right attitude, a divine view, a brave spirit.

Believe there is calmness at the centre of all of us. Know that the mind is peaceful until made to be otherwise. Believe you have the right to be happy. Realize that every feeling you have is preceded by a thought. Be aware of the bewildering array of ego pursuits that surround us. Work to be around positive people. Know that you were created to be content. Know that nothing has to go right for you to be at peace. Remember that there are no permanent mistakes. Take others as they are. Help when a way to help is clear. See innocence in mistakes. Remember that haste makes unhappiness. Give yourself more time to do things. Start identifying people and places that cause unhappiness. Avoid working to defeat people who disagree with you. Forgive. Know that to forgive you need do nothing, it is an act of the heart, not the body. Let go, give up, cease to harbour. Know that when any judgmental train of thought ends, the damage it caused to the mind ends with it. Try to look upon the world the way we allow ourselves to look at a child. Work to enjoy the present. Realize that everyone has the key to being content but few use it. The key is our undeveloped mental focus. Avoid the world motto "do little and expect much". Trade it in for "work hard but expect very little". Remember that a gentle vision makes a more gentle world.

What is Happiness? A puzzling situation. Jamie won the lottery. A whacking £30 million! He appeared to be a good man with a good character. Of the many types of people who might have won, his friends were happy it was Jamie. But two years later he was arrested for drunk driving, resisting arrest, soliciting a prostitute, and having drugs in his car. The arrests continued over the next few years. The excitement of winning did not grow into a lifelong happiness.

Ryan, a successful businessman, was a loner who worked long hours, saving and re-investing most of his profits. He was disliked for his independence and envied for his wealth. Yet his was a life full of contentment and happiness. Why does wealth bring happiness to some and misery to others?

If wealth is not a shortcut to happiness, what about sacrificing for others? Rachel volunteers at the soup kitchen 6 days /week, 52 weeks a year, but hates it, hates her life, and has grown especially bitter towards the people she serves. Errin, an engineer, never does volunteer work. If she gives to charity, she does so very selectively and sparingly. Acquaintances envious of her success call her selfish.

Yet Erin is very happy.

There are many people who we think should be happy but are not. (Jamie the "lucky" lottery winner and Rachel the "serious" volunteer.)

There are many people who we think should be miserable but are not. (Ryan the "loner" businessman and Erin the ``selfish" engineer.)

Some people who seem to have nothing are very happy.

Some people who seem to have everything are not.

Yet some jet-setters seem happy while some moral crusaders have become miserable old grouches. Happiness seems very unpredictable, inconsistent, irrational.

What follows is an explanation as to the rational basis of happiness. Happiness. Happiness is an emotion. So is sadness, love, hate, curiosity, revulsion, excitement, jealousy, contentment, depression, anxiety, fear, guilt and anger. All emotions have causes, causes which can be understood and controlled. The emotion of happiness is not caused simply by entertaining your whims. (Whims are an obstacle to happiness.) Happiness is not merely a life lived by accumulating moments of pleasure. On the contrary, happiness is a long lasting enduring enjoyment of life, it is being in love with living. It is your reward for achieving a good character and personal rational values in life. Some important values are a productive career, romance, friendship and hobbies. Achieving these values requires rationality and takes effort and skill. Two types of skills you can use are thinking skills and valuing skills.

Once you learn to have confidence in your own mind and once you discover the virtues that make it possible for you to achieve your values and that make your life worth living, then you will experience the result - an earned pride and a genuine self-esteem. And of course happiness.
Dr. Ellen Kenner

Secrets to Happiness....

Live beneath your means and within your seams. Return everything you borrow. Donate blood. Stop blaming other people. Admit it when you make a mistake. Give all the clothes you haven't worn in the last three years to charity. Every day do something nice and don't get caught doing it. Listen more and talk less. Every day take a 30-minute walk in your neighbourhood. Skip two meals a week and give money to the homeless. Strive for excellence and perfection. Be on time. Don't make excuses. Don't argue. Get organized. Be kind to kind people. Be even kinder to unkind people. Let someone cut ahead of you in line. Take time to be alone. Reread a favourite book. Cultivate good manners. Be humble. Understand and accept that life isn't always fair. Know when to say something. Know when to keep your mouth shut. Don't criticize anyone for 24 hours. Learn from the past, plan for the future and live in the present. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Researchers have found that money, age, gender, income, race, education and social status don't exert much influence on happiness. Surprisingly, neither do major life events, like marriage or childbirth. After the initial high, it's back to your set-point. However, happy people do tend to share certain personal traits: high self-esteem, optimism, extroversion, and a sense of agency or control over their lives. With high self-esteem you believe yourself worthy of happiness, while a sense of personal agency enables you to handle life's challenges. When it comes to external factors, the only thing that appears to matter is strong social support -- in other words, friends.

The Secrets of Happiness

After psychologist Steven Reiss survived a life-threatening illness, he took a new look at the meaning of life. Now, based on a survey of more than 6,000 people, Reiss offers new insights about what it really takes to be happy.

(The following quotes are from Steven)

Happiness Defined

"Harvard social psychologist William McDougall wrote that people can be happy while in pain and unhappy while experiencing pleasure. To understand this, two kinds of happiness must be distinguished: feel-good and value-based. Feel-good happiness is sensation-based pleasure. When we joke around or have sex, we experience feel-good happiness. Since feel-good happiness is ruled by the law of diminishing returns, the kicks get harder to come by. This type of happiness rarely lasts longer than a few hours at a time.

"Value-based happiness is a sense that our lives have meaning and fulfill some larger purpose. It represents a spiritual source of satisfaction, stemming from our deeper purpose and values. We experience value-based happiness when we satisfy any of the 16 basic desires---the more desires we satisfy, the more value-based happiness we experience. Since this form of happiness is not ruled by the law of diminishing returns, there is no limit to how meaningful our lives can be.

"Malcolm X's life is a good example of both feel-good and value-based happiness. When racial discrimination denied him the opportunity to pursue his childhood ambition of becoming a lawyer, he turned to a life of partying, drugs and sex. Yet this pleasure seeking produced little happiness---by the age of 21, he was addicted to cocaine and sent to jail for burglary. He had experienced a lot of pleasure, yet he was unhappy because his life was inconsistent with his own nature and deeper values. He had known feel-good happiness but not value-based happiness.

"After reaching rock bottom, he embraced the teachings of the Nation of Islam and committed himself to his most fundamental values. He led his followers toward greater social justice, married, had a family of his own and found happiness. Although he experienced less pleasure and more anxiety as a leader, he was much happier because he lived his life in accordance with his values.

"The 16 basic desires make us individuals. Although everybody embraces these desires, individuals prioritize them differently…you do not have to satisfy all 16 desires, only the five or six most important to you.

"After you identify your most important desires, you need to find effective ways to satisfy them. There is a catch, however. Shortly after you satisfy a desire, it reasserts itself, motivating you to satisfy the desire all over again.

"Most people turn to relationships, careers, family, leisure and spirituality to satisfy their most important desires.

"Since we have the potential to satisfy our basic desires through relationships, we can find greater happiness by finding new relationships or by improving the ones we already have. After looking at the 16 basic desires and estimating the five or six most important to you, do the same for your partner, or have your partner take the quiz. Compare the two lists---the strengths of your relationship are indicated by similar desires, and the weaknesses are indicated by disparate desires".

"If you have a high desire for acceptance, for example, you need work that exposes you to little evaluation and potential criticism. If you have a high desire for order, you need work that involves minimal ambiguity and exposes you to few changes. If you are a curious person, you need a job that makes you think.

"Value-based happiness is the great equalizer in life. You can find value-based happiness if you are rich or poor, smart or mentally challenged, athletic or clumsy, popular or socially awkward. Wealthy people are not necessarily happy, and poor people are not necessarily unhappy. Values, not pleasure, are what bring true happiness, and everybody has the potential to live in accordance with their values" .

Rate yourself as follows: describes me strongly (+), somewhat (0), or very little (-)

DESIRE: STATEMENT: SELF-RATING

CURIOSITY………………..I have a thirst for knowledge………………......……..( )

ACCEPTANCE…………….I have a hard time coping with criticism…….......….( )

ORDER………………………It upsets me when things are out of place……...…( )

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY….Physical fitness is very important to me………........…( )

HONOUR……………………..I am a highly principled and loyal person…....……( )

POWER……………………..I often seek leadership roles………….………..…….( )

INDEPENDENCE………..Self-reliance is essential to my happiness…….....…..( )

SOCIAL CONTACT………I am known as a fun-loving person…………….......….( )

FAMILY…………………….My children come first……………………….…...……( )

STATUS…………………….I am impressed by people who

own expensive things………....……......…( )

IDEALISM………………….Compared with most people, I am very

Concerned with social causes………………..( )

VENGEANCE………………It is very important to me to get even with

Those who insult or offend me…....….( )

ROMANCE………………….Compared with my peers, I spend much

More time pursuing or having sex……..…..( )

EATING……………………...I love to eat and often fantasize about food……...…( )

SAVING………………………I hate throwing things away……………………….…( )

TRANQUILLITY……………..It scares me when my heart beats rapidly…………( )

(For more information read: Who am I: The Sixteen Basic desires That Motivate Our Happiness And Define Our Personalities, by Steven Reiss, Ph.D, published by Tarcher/Putnam: 2000

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