Today...

...Be the change you want to see in the world. -Gandhi

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happiness gratitude inspiration creativity

On Happiness and Service

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. - Albert Schweitzer

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happiness gratitude inspiration creativity

Hope smiles...

This quote was waiting for me in my inbox this morning:

Hope smiles on the threshold of the year to come, whispering that it will be happier.
--Alfred Lord Tennyson

What a nice meditation for the day.

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happiness gratitude inspiration creativity

Inspriation to start the week

The habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the countenance.
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
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happiness gratitude inspiration creativity

A short review of Week 1 (And: On Sabotaging Happiness)

The first week of my happiness project went pretty well. I have charts with nifty stars on them where I kept track of both the daily specifics and my January resolutions in general. Looking back on the week I see that I started out of the gate at a sprint - I was so excited to begin working on happiness! And, it worked! It was a pretty happy week. However, I see a drop in my activity level toward the end of the week (yay charts!). As I begin Week 2 I would like to fight through the end-of-the-week-lag and see if I end up with more stars than Week 1. That's my challenge to keep me engaged.

On a larger level in working on how I practice happiness, I took at look at where my own behavior might be occasionally sabotaging my happiness.

Here are a few behaviors I've identified:

Expectations
Especially when I feel disappointed with a person or situation, I have begun to ask myself a few questions:

1. Has this person or situation really done something to upset me?
   
2. OR, did I have some expectation that the person would do something, or that a situation would go a certain way, and then I became unhappy when things did not go as I expected?
3. Have I communicated my desires realistically, specifically and clearly?

I think the 3rd question here is key. Clear communication helps me to get those expectations out on the table. But, "letting go" is also important. That's just good practice in life anyway. Sometimes I have an expectation that, upon evaluation, just doesn't really matter ultimately. Then, it's time to LET GO...

Resentments
When I begin to feel unhappy with what seems to be a resentment I remember that everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves (Jung). When I am disturbed I ask myself:

1. What is it about me that should be addressed in this situation?
   
2. How can I make it better?
   
3. What can I learn?

I don't usually get there right away, but most of the time when I focus the reflection on myself I am able to (eventually) spot my responsibility - or "my part" as they say. When I am not able to see what I can learn/change in a resentment situation, I am working on patience. Here, "there is only love" comes in handy. If I can't act with love, I don't act (more realistically - this is the attitude I am trying to adopt, it's not perfect).

Fear
In his song, The Heart of Life, John Mayer says, fear is a friend who's misunderstood. That has stayed with me. My big questions here are:

1. What am I afraid of?
2. Why am I afraid of this (is it a reasonable fear)?
3. How can I let go of this fear?

Even though it's not easy to just "let go" of a fear, once I've truly identified and acknowledged it, I am able to find a way to work through it instead of allowing it to continue to control me. I challenge myself to "be unafraid." Another way to phrase question 3: What would I do if I were unafraid? I have found that I would much rather do something even if I am afraid, than regret not doing anything at all (especially due to fear).

There are more but I think that's enough unpacking for a Sunday night. What behaviors do you think might occasionally sabotage your happiness?

Gratitude: 1/2/2009

1. Googled the code and managed to figure out how to change my Blogger template to 3 columns!!!!!
2. Setting up my new workspace in our bedroom.
   
3. Making my workspace a place I want to be.
   
4. Creativity.
5. My commandments.
6. Seeking to inspire as well as to be inspired.
7. My to-do list.
8. Good reading.
9. Sean's new drawing/craft table.
10. Being unafraid.
11. My gratitude list is growing.
12. Receiving gratitude lists from others. When another person is willing to share with me I am inspired to also share more.
13. January's resolutions: Order, order, order. Order is Heaven's first law (Alexander Pope).
    
14. Being flexible.
15. New crochet patterns.
16. The library.
17. Teaching H how to use the library.
18. Taking books back on time, and using online renewal for the ones I can't part with just yet.
19. The quiet end of the day. Time for me.
    
20. Hearing Sean laugh.
    

Joseph Campbell

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides.

Who is George Sand? ;)

One is happy as a result of one’s own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness—simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain. --George Sand

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
• Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
• Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

On reading...

And applies to many things in life, I think:

So the one final reason for reading is to confront this problem of roses versus weeds in the company of geniuses, and with the pleasure of looking at the roses that have actually been produced, against all odds. If want to write, it makes sense to read - and to read like a writer. If we wanted to grow roses, we would want to visit rose gardens and try to see them the way that a rose gardener would. --Francine Prose

I asked Thoreau for some guidance today.

Here are 3 things he told me:

1. Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
2. A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
3. However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Stuck right in the middle of 20 and 40

Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. -- W. H. Auden

Meditation to start the week...

Order is Heaven's first law. - Alexander Pope

What I'm thinking about today...

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. --Carl Jung

Inspiration for Today

If the only prayer you say in your whole life is "Thank You," that would suffice.
-- Meister Eckhart

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Creativity

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. -- A.A. Miline

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. -- Albert Einstein