Mountains and Molehills

There are mountains and there are molehills. Don't confuse the two.

Silent Night, Holy Night

Merry Christmas

Happiness: A Way of Life

We All Want to Be Happy

We all want to be happy. In one way or another, we all want to experience happiness and joy through all the events in our lives. Happiness is something we all want to experience. Happiness exists as something we all can experience, and we all can sustain happiness throughout our lives. Being happy and experiencing happiness is the way we all can reach our highest potential for ourselves and the universe.

What does happiness mean? Happiness means experiencing the state of being happy. What does it mean to be happy? To be happy means to show pleasure and contentment. To show it. Not just to experience it, but to show happiness as part of the way we live our lives. One way we can show happiness is to share the fact that we are happy with others.

Sharing gets back to the root for me, for in sharing the inner state we have, we are able to expand on its ability to create change in others. Are we out to change others? Are we out to expand our own horizons, and create happiness everywhere we go? Yes. We all want to be happy. Let's share it.

How to Be Happy

To be happy is more than just putting on a front of a positive attitude toward the experiences and tribulations of life. A positive outlook can and will contribute toward our happiness, but positivity alone cannot make you a happy person.

Happiness must come from within. Happiness is a state of mind. Not a physical state we can just enter into, but a mental state from which we can operate and enjoy life's pleasures and deal with life's troubles.

So how can you be happy? How do we get ourselves into this mental state of happiness? It sounds too simple to be true, but we just create it and enter into it. We decide to be happy, and we make it happen. It takes practice, but that is why we are given the gift of moment to moment living, in order to practice stepping into happiness.

Happiness is a state of mind. We are capable of entering that state of mind at any time. Unfortunately, we forget how simple the formula for happiness is (create happiness, and enter into it) and so start searching for things outside of ourselves in order to make us happy. But really, happiness is within each of us, and is a state of mind we can enter into at any time.

How to Create Happiness (in Others and Yourself)

Can we create a positive emotion or a state of consciousness in others? I think it is possible to encourage a different state of mind in others, but that the person must enter into that state of their own accord. However, by setting the stage for others to be happy, we make it easier for them to step over the threshold of happiness and experience the joy of being.

So how can we set the stage for others to be happy? 

Give

By giving. By giving ourselves to others.

Be Grateful

By being grateful. By being grateful for what others give to us.

Share

By sharing. By sharing what we have to offer with those we love and the world.

Through giving and sharing our own happiness and other positive emotions and experiences, and being grateful for the opportunity to share, give and receive from others, we are able to create more opportunity for happiness in others.

Reaching the Zen(ith) of Happiness (Or How to Smile)

So if happiness is a state of mind, we need to be able to enter that state at will, anytime we like, so that we can be happy at a moment's notice. Ideally we would maintain our happy outlook and demeanor at all times. This is difficult to do. As said before, it takes practice. But to practice it is just as easy as learning to ride a bike. Be happy. Repeat. Just be happy. There is so much that life has to offer all of us, so much that we can do, wouldn't you rather be happy doing it? There is so much opportunity in the world for us to experience happiness, because every single moment holds the secret to our happiness! We don't have to wait for anything to come to us, or until this or that is accomplished, we can choose to be happy now.

What will you choose?

Where will you go to learn more?

For starters, smile!

By smiling, you trick your mind into believing you are happy. A real smile creases the eyes, but a mouth only smile can get you started. Give it a try! Try it with those you love. Try your smile out in public, especially at this time of year.  

Look in the mirror and test out your smile. Then share it with others.

Don't worry. Be happy. Then share it with others.

Relaxation

How do I enter into complete relaxation? It begins with posture. Prone is best for me, on my stomach, eyes closed. Then begin breathing, deeply through the mouth then out through the mouth. For better or worse I am a mouth breather. Oh well. 

Once the posture is right, then I envision all thoughts and emotions as objects. I prefer cars or motorcycles. The thoughts just stream by me, I do not have to interact with them at all. I am sitting on the side of the road, waiting for the bus. The cars and motorcycles and trucks that lumber past pay me no notice, and I don’t pay any attention to them either.

I am completely relaxed. Now what?

Now what do I do? I have achieved relaxation state. Ah, yes, now I try to just stay here as long as possible. Remain in a relaxed frame of mind for as long as possible. Laugh. Laugh when I am relaxed, it opens up happy pathways in my brain.

Happy pathways are good for my soul. And for my body.

Getting Ready

I think I am almost ready to start sharing most of what I write. Up to this point, I have been writing somewhere else then copying and pasting pieces into posts. This whole blog is dedicated to the idea of being able to watch someone go from an unskilled, unknown artist, to something more. And what better way to capture that than by witnessing the unskilled portion of the learning curve?

I don't have to be concerned any longer with what others might think of my attempts at writing. Nothing has really changed to allow me to think that, except that I have changed. I have become more confident in my skills and I think that my concept of a blog that follows one from unskilled to skilled is a good concept.

I notice that I talk about myself a lot when I write, and that it may seem narcissistic at times. I am okay with that. I have to stop worrying about what may or may not be perceived by others and just get on with the show.

And by getting on with the show, by writing, I am able to further my dreams, and get myself to a point of success. I am able to bring my dreams into reality. In fact, I am living my dream at this moment, as I write this. That is all I want in a career, to be able to write and create freely from my mind and my experience. By practicing the act of writing and creating before it is my career, I will be ready for when my creative career takes off.

In the meantime, I will do my best to create what I can with the time I have, and will work to create more time to do my best creating. That is a good start. It is good because I say it is good, to anyone else it may just be bad, but to me it is good, and so it is good.

It is official. I am ready. I got through this post unscathed, and there is a new truth and bareness to my writing that was not there before. It is open for the world to see. Let it out. Let the light shine.