7 Ancient Keys To HAPPINESS
By: S. Warren
Smashwords Edition
(C) Copyright 2010 S. Warren
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To my dear niece, I’m writing this for you, to help you navigate your ship through the rough waters of life and to steer you towards an island of beauty, true happiness, fulfilment and love.
PART 1 – SEEING THE GOOD BY LEARNING THE ROPES
Day 9 Living in the Real world
Day 11 Conditional Contentment
Day 12 You owe it to yourself & others
PART 2 - SEEING THE GOOD IN OUR PAST
Day 17 Jail Break, You’ve got the power
PART 3 - SEEING THE GOOD IN PEOPLE
Day 22 Understanding Gobbly-gook
Day 27 You’re doing a great job!
PART 4 - RIGHT NOW AND IN THE FUTURE
THE DYNAMICS OF JUDGING OBJECTIVELY
Day 47 Listen Carefully to the Prosecutor.
Day 52 Bribes blind the eyes of the Wise
Day 57 Occupational Health & Safety (OHS)
Day 60 Feeling good about yourself
Day 63 Doing good leads to feeling good
Day 64 The Pleasure of being In-Charge
Day 76 Faking it until it’s real
Day 82 Withstanding temptation
Day 86 Taking in order to Give
Day 87 Getting Deep – inner truths
Day 88 Being true unto yourself
Day 90 Keep it Alive with Team work
END OF CONTENTS
Imagine winning 1 billion dollars, an Olympic gold medal, being elected President, becoming rich, famous, admired, loved and honoured by everybody - all on one day. Take all that pleasure you would feel and multiply it by every day of your life. When you master the keys to happiness, you will be able to experience this level of pleasure – AND MORE every day.
There are 7 ancient keys to having this level of inner-happiness. Unlock the secrets!
People who have harnessed the power of happiness have become more successful and motivated, achieved major goals and developed charisma. If you can master the art of happiness you will be a more effective boss, employee, spouse, parent and friend. You will also simultaneously acquire more direction in life, persistence, vitality, drive, patience, enthusiasm, magnetism, inner-greatness, distinction, confidence, courage, self-esteem and true fulfilment. People love happy people and happy people are constantly blessed with good things happening to them. Happiness is THE most powerful tool for business, relationships and life!
Happiness – The Inside Story.
If we look around the world, we see a mass of humanity all searching for the same thing – happiness. A human being seems to need to pursue happiness as though it is a life necessity, like air, or water etc. In fact, most of society is based on catering for this human drive. We search for it in food – looking for new and exciting taste sensations; clothes – trying to find that outfit that brings out the best in us; relationships, music, art, success, money, spiritual experiences and popularity etc. We hope by fulfilling our needs, wants, desires or even whims we will attain this ultimate goal called happiness.
This book was written as a guide for those searching for the real thing – a long lasting, constant and continuous state of being.
But in order to get this pleasure we need to realize one important thing – Happiness is a CHOICE. Happiness is not a happenstance, it is not something that if the right stars move into the right alignment then boom we will be happy, it’s not a case of meeting the right girl/boy, it’s not a case of whether we get the promotion or anything external to us.
Happiness is NEVER dependant on other people. We may have people in our lives that are extremely challenging and frustrate us immensely – but they are not the ones that decide whether we are happy or not. People may be placed in our lives to help us work on our inter-personal relationships. If we can use challenging people and situations as a springboard for developing ourselves into better people and bettering our personal character traits (such as patience, unconditional love, assertiveness etc) then we will be happy to have had the opportunity to meet these difficult people – because they would have helped make us into better people.
Developing the inner feeling of happiness is completely up to us. Other people cannot be the determiners of whether we are happy, it’s only how we choose to react to or view these people that determine our state of mind. We can choose to be upbeat and positive in the face of other’s negativity and poor behaviour, and we can choose not to give them power over us and let their influence undermine our peaceful, joyful outlook.
Happiness is a CHOICE, an internal choice whereby we can choose to make the most of our lives and be proactively joyful. Passively waiting around for happiness to descend upon us will NEVER bring lasting happiness – we have to work for it and the harder we can work to be happy, then the more happiness we will be able to cultivate.
So let’s choose to be happy! We can choose to be happy, we can choose to turn our lives around and make them into joyful experiences – every day. We can choose to live a life we love and to love the life we live – it’s all up to us. We only live once – we can make it a great life with no regrets.
In order to get the most pleasure out of life we need to wake ourselves up. We all fall asleep in the humdrum comings and goings of our lives. If we can wake ourselves up and see that every second of life offers us the most unbelievable opportunity to make it into a blissful moment – then we can start to really taste the joy of living.
Once we are awake, trying to live life to the fullest, then we can start to think about what we can do that will give us the greatest pleasure in that moment.
Nothing can beat a tried, tested and successful recipe. Grandma’s old sponge recipe always tastes the best. An old good wine has nothing with which to compare. So in our search for ultimate happiness, we can go looking for such a recipe and if we look back far enough we will find an ancient recipe for happiness.
Everybody has heard of the story of Noah and the Great Flood. Even societies that were not influenced by Judaic-Christian-Muslim influences even have old archaic versions of a story about a man who was saved from a big flood. It is a universally known story. However, very few people know that after the flood, Noah was given 7 Commandments (No NOT the 10 Commandments – that happened much later.) From these 7 Commandments we can derive 7 timeless principles which are the ancient keys for achieving happiness. Many will notice that we find some of these keys in every single culture in one form or another, which is proof of their timeless wisdom. These ancient keys have been used for thousands of years by all different people. For the first time, ‘7 Ancient Keys to Happiness’ has collated all 7 of these keys into one succinct, hands-on, do-it-yourself guide to happiness.
Using these 7 ancient keys to happiness we are going to be guided through an exciting, pre-tested and successful path to bliss. So get ready to open your mind to a different and ancient reality and join us on this mystical path to the City of Happiness.
The 7 ancient keys to happiness can be divided into 3 main principles, thus this book is divided into three main sections.
Section 1: SMELL EVERY ROSE - Key #1 (i.e. See the Good in Everything)
Section 2: CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN - Key #2 (i.e. Judge things Objectively); and
Section 3: LOVE EVERY DAY - Keys #3to #7 (i.e. Love Yourself)
Overall the book consists of 90 days of wisdom and growth. Each day there is a ‘Give it a Go!’ exercise which is a practical thing for us to do to help drive us towards attaining success and happiness.
Since it’s hard for most people to be disciplined enough to do the exercises there is a little ‘Why should I?’ pep talk after each ‘Give it a Go!’, which explains why we should try out the exercise and what we hope to gain by doing it.
___________
Meeting the Quiet Voice
Before we begin our journey to discover the 7 keys to happiness and before we learn how to smell every rose, climb every mountain and love every day, we need to get in touch with that part of us that helps us reach for the stars, follow our dreams and be the type of person we love and we’re proud of. Let’s meet our tour guide - The Quiet Voice...
Getting in touch
It had been a hard day: I woke up in the morning; crawled out of bed; ran into the shower; and then sat in front of my wardrobe trying to find something to suit the mood I was in, something that projected the image I wanted to portray, something that would be me. I put on my makeup, eye makeup to make my eyes look bigger, foundation to make my face look more smooth and tanned, blush to show a little bit of youthful exuberance and lipstick to bring out my passionate side. I rummaged around the kitchen for something that was tasty, and would keep my body looking and feeling good. Then I set out for the shopping centre. I talked and laughed with my friends all day whilst shopping. 8 hours later I returned home, with some new goodies that called out a promise of making me more fulfilled. Then I collapsed in front of the computer looking for something light to lift my mood, as I ate dinner. I watched a show, where the person said, “So are you happy? Do you know what you are living for?” I thought for a little bit, “Yeah I’m happy – I think. I don’t really know why I’m living and I don’t care!” A few hours later I retired but I couldn’t fall asleep. All I could think of was “Yeah I’m happy and I don’t care why I’m living.” But there was a voice in my head that kept saying it over and over. The voice was getting louder and more panicky. It was like I was trying to shout down an opposing voice. I felt tense, and I was breathing quick shallow breaths. I shouted out aloud, “Yeah, I’m happy, and I don’t care! Why are you bothering me?” Then I heard it, it was a small voice inside my head, it was barely audible it whispered, “No, I’m not happy. I’m completely miserable. Help - I want to live!“
We all have times in our lives where we hear that quiet voice. Sometimes it’s the quiet voice of wisdom and insight, whereas other times it could be the quiet voice of discontent that tells us that we are leading futile lives. When it’s the quiet voice of discontent we tend to ignore it or we might try to distract ourselves. We may do this because we secretly fear that there is no solution to our vague feelings of discontent or answers to our quest for meaning
However, if we tune into listening to this quiet voice, we will discover that it will lead us on paths of self-discovery and true delight. It takes courage to not run away. It takes courage to ask ourselves questions and to hear our inner answers.
We all have a deep reflective part of us that is full of wisdom, it is full of true goodness and it is that part of us that gives us the tools to attain the deepest most long lasting feelings of pleasure. This reflective part of us is not the selfish “I need”, “give me” voice that says ‘chocolate cake is delicious so give me 5 pieces’; instead it’s the one that really looks after our interests. It might say, “have some,” but only for the right reasons - the chocolate cake looks delicious, we haven’t had any for 3 months and if we are too tough on ourselves we’ll start rebelling against our healthy eating resolution - so it recommends we have some (maybe ½ a piece) and really enjoy it!
Some people who have tried to find their deep reflective quiet voice, have expressed frustration saying, “I sat on my bed and waited, and nothing happened.” If we were to ask them what they were thinking whilst doing this they may say, “This is silly”. To which we could answer; the thought ‘This is silly’ is what we are calling an inner voice, it’s the shallow noisy voice.
In this book, when we talk about voices we are not talking about REAL voices that we hear, the voices are not external to us. Normally crazy people only hear such voices. The voices we are talking about are really THOUGHTS. We are thinking all of the time, these thoughts can be divided into categories – shallow wants and desires, analysing information and making decisions we need to make etc (we call this ‘the noisy voice’) and there are deeper thoughts (we call this ‘the quiet voice’).
Some people prefer to call the quiet voice the thoughts of the good conscious, intuition, a flash of inspiration, or deep and meaningful revelations. We are thinking them already - they are not going to be something ‘new and exciting’. However, what may be new is that we all have DIFFERENT types of thoughts and these can be categorised, prioritised and even channelled. Tapping into how we think is the beginning of self-knowledge. Once we understand how we work, we can then manipulate, control and use our inherent awesome powers to have a wonderful life.
Give it a Go!
Sometimes at the beginning of getting in touch – we need to turn it all off, in order to turn the quiet voice on. It means turning off the phone, the computer, the TV, the radio, the books, and the mindless chatter that goes on inside our heads.
Try lying on your bed, look at the ceiling or close your eyes and ask yourself a question e.g. “What’s my life about? Or ‘Am I happy?” The noisy voice may rush into answer, let it have a little turn, and then tell it to be silent, and wait for the quiet voice to respond. Try doing this turning off for at least 15 min.
Why Should I?
Getting in touch with ourselves is the first step in achieving anything in life. If we learn to know who we really are, what makes us tick and what gives us real pleasure then we able to ‘feed’ ourselves with all the right things that ultimately bring us happiness. Imagine if we bought a fern and cactus from a shop and swapped around the care instructions, there is no doubt that both the fern and the cactus would die, as the fern needs plenty of water and little sunlight whereas the cactus needs little water and much sunlight.
We human beings are such unique creatures and the care instructions for one person will be totally different to that of another. We need to understand ourselves to know how to care for ourselves and how to provide ourselves with the nourishment we need to bring out the best in us. However, since no two people are alike we can’t turn to anybody else to tell us how to operate ourselves and care for ourselves optimally. Sure we can (and should) ask others for advice and ideas, but ultimately we are the only ones that know when the advice we are given is applicable to us.
Each person has internal care instructions for themselves hard wired into their personality, which means each person in this world has the ability to find out who they are and how to maximize their potential. The care instructions are deep within us, embedded in our consciousness, intuition or felt at times of inspiration. When we learn to reflect deeply and get in touch with who we are then we can start the journey of self discovery. Discovering what you like, what drives you, what motivates or de-motivates you, makes you into a formula 1 race car driving towards your goals at top speed.
Conversely when we are afraid to ask ourselves deep and meaningful questions and run away from that part of ourselves we weaken our ability to take hold of the wheel and drive ourselves where we want to go, we go about directionless and end up not using even half the amount of potential we have.
So the first step towards achieving happiness is to recognise we have a part of ourselves that is deep, reflective, wise, worth listening to and consulting. If we can learn how to sit down and get in touch, then we will have discovered the most powerful tool for success in anything in life. We can use this tool for the rest of our lives, any time and in any situation to help us achieve any goal.
When we learn how to tune into our quiet voice we will have also discovered our best advisor, friend, user manual, care instructions, life coach and life-long companion.
Reading a book about upgrading our levels of happiness will make us happier in the short term but for long term benefits we need to put into practice what we’ve learned. Go on try out the exercise, it won’t take long and you’ll benefit from it greatly.
Go on – Get to know yourself – Give it a Go!
Learning to Listen
Once we have discovered the deep reflective quiet voice inside we can start learning to listen to it – even when we are not all alone without any distractions.
“My friend called me up and asked if I wanted to come out with her. I did want to. But I had already said to my mother that I would help her do some spring cleaning that day. I had a choice. Either I could push my mother off, or I could take a raincheck with my friend. I really didn’t know what to do, so I asked my quiet reflective voice. The noisy voice rushed to answer, “Go with your friend, you’ll have more fun, and you’re not your mother’s slave anyway”, but I waited patiently for the quiet voice, and it said, “take a raincheck” (with your friend).
The more we tune into listening to that quiet voice, the more we get in touch with the “real me”. And when we learn to listen to the “real me’s” advice, the more we start to feel an inner calmness and happiness.
“I used to feel my emotions were like a tornado hovering over the ocean, with waves crashing, with power and speed on the shore. Now, when I try to visualise how I am emotionally feeling, a scene of the sea shore still appears but, the water is very calm – more like a lake, with tiny ripples as waves.”
“I think all of this sounds foolish, we live in the real world, how is escaping into my thoughts going to get me more money, power or prestige.”
Money, power and prestige are not synonymous with happiness. However, as we all know - it doesn’t mean we live in bliss if we DON’T have them, but it also doesn’t mean we ARE happy if we DO have them - they don’t bring us lasting happiness ON THEIR OWN. Money, power and prestige are like cars that we can use to drive us towards happiness. But if we are just driving around, not knowing where we are supposed to be going then we won’t arrive at our destination, and we might get very frustrated and lost. It is a bit pointless spending all our time and efforts in upgrading and improving our cars, without actually knowing where we are planning to drive them. By learning to listen to our inner voice, we’ll be turning on the GPS navigation system in our car. Our deep reflective quiet voice will lead us towards happiness. Listening to our quiet voice is not escaping into our thoughts; it is bringing our thoughts out into the open. The quiet voice is always there, and is talking to us – we just need to tune in and it will guide us towards a life of bliss.
Give it a Go!
It’s time to get quiet again. Let’s reflect and ask ourselves, “What can I do today to increase the levels of joy I feel in my life?” and wait for the quiet answer.
Write down the answer you received
Why Should I?
We are actually more wise, knowledgeable and intuitive than we realize. We all have a part of ourselves that knows us very well. Deep down we have hunches or inklings about what will bring us to true joy. When we learn to listen to ourselves, we will start hearing some amazing and insightful answers that we JUST KNOW are right.
When a person is feeling serene and relaxed their brain is fired up into more creativity and profound thought. Often when we stress ourselves out, we are actually blocking all of our neural pathways with ‘urgent, beware, be on guard, quick, hurry, I must...’ messages and these shallow recurring thoughts use up our brain power, drain us of our thinking ability and turn us into robots walking the treadmill of life.
In order to develop our creativity and ability to think outside the box of our current problems and existence, we need to free our mind from the humdrum routine of life that we constantly preoccupy ourselves with. When we take out the time to teach ourselves to slow down, relax and reflect, we can then start using that amazing gift of our brain to help us. With deep reflective thought we can actually come up with most of the answers to all of our problems. So instead of suffering our problems we can use our brain to solve our problems.
All we need to do is to believe that we have it within us. You are smart, you are creative, you are a genius at being able solve your problems and bring yourself to a place where you feel genuinely happy, energised and satisfied with your life.
The only way we can develop this firm belief in our abilities is to become proactive and practice tapping into our deep inner wisdoms. The more we can practice asking ourselves deep and meaningful questions, the more we will realize that good quality answers bubble up from within. Eventually we will be able to rely on these answers and trust our quiet voice.
Only by experimenting with this idea and finding that it really works, will we develop the faith and trust in our ability to access a higher wisdom within ourselves whenever we want. When we know that we have this power within us then we will never feel totally lost, alone, out of our depth or completely overwhelmed – no matter what situation we happen to be in. When we learn to ask ourselves deep questions and we just KNOW we will receive great responses we develop a confidence in our own decision making and ability to determine our own path in life.
Go on - Learning to listen to your deep reflective inner voice will bring you unimaginable rewards – Give it a Go!
Keeping in touch
“I found it,” Kate said, “I listened for a few days, and finally I heard it. I have a problem though – I don’t want to do what it said. It tells me to be responsible and I want to be carefree. It tells me to tell the truth, when I want to tell a little white lie – it’s a pest! ”
Have you ever really wanted something, and you worked really hard to achieve it, and finally you got it? It could have been a good grade on a test, winning an athletics competition, or getting the lead role in a play. The feeling of victory or success was made so sweet not DESPITE the hard work that was put in but BECAUSE of the hard work that was invested. Listening to our soft quiet voice doesn’t mean instant happiness, but it’s starting the climb up the mountain. It’s not easy to climb a mountain, but the higher we climb the more beautiful the view is. When we sit down to practice the piano, its hard work, it’s boring, it’s a pest! But the result, the beautiful sounding melody that floats from the instruction of our fingers, fills the air and raises our spirits and we feel that all the hard work is worthwhile. Learning to listen to our quiet voice will take effort, but we need to keep going and keep trying. The more we make this voice our friend and listen to what it is saying, the more we will soar to heights of happiness.
“I don’t like the voice because it makes me feel guilty.”
Sometimes the quiet voice tells us to do many good and kind things that are simply inconvenient or are just not what we feel we are prepared to do at this time in our lives. Then when we don’t live up to what it says we should be, we might feel like a failure or feel guilty. But if we listen closely, it’s not the quiet voice that calls us a failure, or tells us that we are bad – it is that loud rapacious one. When we’ve done things that hurt somebody’s feelings the quiet voice says, ‘go make up and apologise’, but the loud voice shouts ‘you’re hopeless, no good, bad etc...’
The quiet voice wants to point us in the right direction – and it is not necessarily possible for us to be there straight away. That’s ok. We are not perfect, and we shouldn’t expect ourselves to be perfect. So if our quiet voice tells us we should set up an institution for disabled people, we don’t have to feel bad if we don’t go out and do it. What we need to know is that there is some place inside us that cares for disabled people and would like to help them out – how we express this desire immediately could be simply by helping a person who needs our assistance to cross the road.
If the quiet voice is persistent with grand desires – then we should follow the path that will lead us there. However, we may find that we will reach a point of satisfaction and not desire to follow through with our original grandiose plans (of setting up an Institute for disabled people.) If we are doing a small acts that are similar to our original plan e.g. helping a disabled person once a week, we may notice that we no longer desire to set up that Institute. Why? Because the quiet voice’s grand plans are sometimes wild fantasies based on an unfulfilled need we have deep inside. It’s a bit like when we are starving hungry - we fantasize about many different types of food or drinks, but when it finally comes time to eat we are too full to eat even half of what we fantasized about having. The same principle may apply to our quiet voice grand plans, once we start feeding our deep needs, we may find that our original grand plans become sidelined. But we should never sell ourselves short, if our quiet voice really craves for us to set up an institution – then eventually, step by step – we’ll get there. We just need keep asking the quiet voice what to do next, keep up the dialogue and keep listening.
Give it a Go!
Try taking one small step towards something that your quiet voice says to do.
Today I will try to take one step towards:___________
Why Should I?
Life is not a spectator sport. Every person in this world has grand dreams, goals and wishes/resolutions for a better life. What differentiates between the winners and the losers, the achievers and the dreamers is ACTION (and persistence to keep on doing those actions.) If we have worked hard and taught ourselves how to access our deep wisdom then we are completely foolish to ignore its good advice, especially since we know deep down that its advice is perfect for us. It’s like an alcoholic having a revelation that all of his problems are due to his addiction but not having the inner strength to do anything about it. Knowing HOW to solve our problems doesn’t make them go away, just like knowing how to make a million dollars doesn’t make us a millionaire. Only by going out there and putting our knowledge into practice do we start to accrue the benefits of that knowledge.
If we’ve gained some clarity in what we really would like to do with our lives, then we need to chase that dream, hunt it down, take hold of it with both hands and make it a reality. Losers are full of regrets, lost dreams and ‘I should have, could have...’ statements. Upbeat, happy people are full of the joy of living, trying (regardless of whether they succeed or not), and a can-do attitude.
Success is not achieved over night. Success also isn’t always measured by achieving our original dream or goal – but success IS being able to make and appreciate the small steps needed in order to reach our goal. Success is when we get up from a fall and try again, success is when we beat that part of ourselves that wants to give up and resign itself to mediocrity. Success is when we keep dreaming, hoping and planning for a better future (whilst simultaneously appreciating all that we have right now.)
So it’s time to get up and go. Dust off those old dreams, reflect deeply on what you really want out of life and who you really want to be and take a step towards being a success TODAY, you might find that it will be the first of many steps leading you to a life of success and happiness.
Go on – Take your first steps towards achieving lost dreams - Give it a Go!
Two are better than one
Now I’m going to take you on a journey to true bliss. On the journey, reflect and ask yourself “Is this true?” and if it is, then ask yourself, “What should be done with this information?” and wait to hear a quiet answer.
As with all cruises, they are best done whilst enjoying the company of people we like. The friends a person chooses, the work/school associates and the family which we have been born into (or marry into) all form a basis of whom we interact with regularly. They are often the ones that can cheer us up or conversely give us the biggest challenges to maintaining our equanimity.
So the first step in navigating towards a more blissful existence is to learn the ability to make good friends and keeping them.
Who is a good friend? Ask your quiet voice.
When on the journey of life, we need to have friends that will help us, that will be there for us, that will guide us, that will inspire us, encourage us and most of all - friends who will love us. Nothing great has been achieved alone, there is always a team of two or more – ask any successful person, and they will have to say they were helped by others on the way.
Everybody needs a friend (or more). To get the most out of our journey in life, if we want to grow as a person, we need friends to talk with, to help us, to grow with us. Friendship is based on sharing – sharing what we have, and them sharing with us. Friendship is based on love – loving them for whom they are (not needing them to change in order to justify our love), and for them to love us for whom we are (warts and all).
“I had heaps of friends; I was one of the most popular girls in my class. However, last year when a new girl came to class, she turned them all against me, and now nobody wants to talk to me.”
True friends stick by us. They aren’t our friend because of what we give them, nor because everyone else is, nor to gain social standing by being associated with us. True friends are attached to us with an invisible bond of love; they are the ones that will be there for us even when it is really inconvenient or embarrassing.
“I have a friend who gets herself into trouble, and waits to see if I’m going to bail her out.”
A good friend is a giver not a taker. A good friend knows her worth – she knows that she is a likeable person. If a person puts themselves into a position of need, to test their friend, then this person doesn’t really feel he/she is lovable. A person who doesn’t honestly think they are lovable is incapable of loving – because we can only give to others what we own. If we don’t own love (and the first love is self love), then we can’t give it to anyone else.
“I don’t know if I have a good friend.”
As said earlier, everyone needs friends, and if we can’t find suitable friends – then we can MAKE FRIENDS. This means helping our to-be friends by teaching them how to be a good friend and person. How do we do this? By choosing a person who looks like they have some qualities we admire. Befriending her (or him) and then teaching him/her to see their good qualities - point them out, compliment him/her etc... This way we will be building ourselves a friend.
The best way to go through life is with a friend. And the best way to go through learning this book is with a friend. We can call up a friend and ask him/her if they want to do this with us. Each day we can speak on the telephone (or meet together) and go through the pages of the book. Each day we could read a different ‘Day’, talk about the ideas and do the Give it a Go! exercise. We could do the exercises together, grow together and be happy together.
Give it a Go!
Get quiet and ask yourself “Who would make a good lifelong friend?”
See if you can do this book together with a friend.
Why Should I?
Have you ever tried to diet, but just gave up - not because you didn’t want to lose the weight, but because it was just too hard to keep up the momentum? Achieving true inner-happiness is like any type of change and is going to require persistence, dedication and determination. One of the BEST ways to keep up our great resolutions is to do it with a support group. In particular, it’s a great idea to get together with a buddy or a friend and work on bettering ourselves and our levels of contentment. Two people are more powerful than one. Although one plus one normally equals two, when it comes to working on something together with another person, one plus one equals heaps more than two.
With a friend we are able to maintain our momentum to achieve our goals, we will have a person to discuss any difficulties or share any inspirations, we will catch our friend when he/she falls and he/she will catch us when we are falling. We can help each other, encourage each other, support each other and grow together – not just growing by achieving our goals, but we will grow as a person and our friendship will blossom and deepen as a result of sharing a common goal and experience.
So let’s do ourselves a favour, call up a friend that we think will also want to work on maximizing their happiness and joy and see if we can do it together, it will be much more fun.
Go on – Enjoy doing this book with a friend – Give it a Go!
Starting the Cruise
Before we start on the journey towards the City of Happiness together we need to make sure we’re all looking at the same map, and all heading in the same direction.
“I think happiness is a state of complete euphoria, like living on cloud 9 constantly.”
“I think happiness is a quiet soft feeling of contentment.”
“I think happiness is the thrill of wild excitement running through your veins constantly.”
If we are aiming for a state called ‘Happiness’ we need to know what it is we think we are trying to achieve. This book will lead us along the path towards different types of feelings we categorise as happiness. But the ultimate goal is to reach a level of constant, continuous inner-bliss.
In order to reach this goal of inner-bliss we are going to be learning lots of new, exciting and interesting information and tools. This book is a full-on, hands-on happiness workbook. It’s designed for people who seriously want to be happy. We will be able to attain mind-blowing levels of inner-peace, enthusiasm and zest for living by taking each day seriously and doing the Give it a Go! exercises.
In order to be willing to put in the effort, we must be clear that we want the results. So it’s good to write down what we hope to achieve by reading the book. Think about it before we start, because that way we will become hyper-focused to head toward attaining this great level of bliss. Think about what Happiness means to you and how you could see your life as different if you lived with a feeling of happiness. The more we think about it, the clearer it will become to us that happiness is something we deeply desire and it’s ours for the taking.
“If I lived in a state of happiness, I would be more patient, loving and kind to my children.”
“I think one of the biggest benefits to me working on being happy is that I will have more friends.”
“I want to be happier because I’ve had enough of getting depressed and wasting my life away.”
There are areas of our lives that will start to shine when we are able to maintain a happy disposition. We all have the inner wisdom to know how much better our lives will be when we master the state of inner-bliss. Once we can see how our lives will improve as a result of working on increasing our levels of happiness, we will be excited and committed to learning this valuable skill.
You can do it! Your life will never be the same once you have tasted the sweet tranquil waters of bliss. So Come on – Let’s Go – All Aboard – We’re OFF!
Give it a Go!
What does Happiness mean to you?
Write down 3 ways your life would be different if you lived in a state of happiness.
Why Should I?
The first exercise helps us gain clarity on what we want to achieve when we say we want to be happy. Sometimes we think we want something without even knowing what that ‘something’ is. This first exercise will help us work out what we think happiness is all about, and then we can start really shooting towards it. Also when we start defining what we believe happiness is we can assess whether we are trying to reach a real and attainable goal. For example if somebody thinks happiness is having 10 billion dollars, millions of admiring fans and enough time in their day to lie in bed for 18 hours. Then they will never reach happiness, because even if they reach their goals they will be disappointed to find out they still haven’t acquired happiness.
When trying to define what happiness means to us, we would be wise to project into the future and think deeply. If we can envisage ourselves living our lives according to our definition and having a feeling of complete satisfaction and bliss – then our definition is probably a good one. Before we shoot for the stars, it’s good to know which star we are trying to reach.
The second exercise a great way to feel the power of happiness. It is there to focus us on how our lives would be different if we mastered living in the state of bliss.
It’s great to dare to dream, because if the dream is vivid and desirable enough we will be fortified to keep striving until we make it a reality. When we are clear that happiness will transform our lives substantially we will have the determination and stamina needed to reach our goal.
If we can think of three tangible ways that improving our levels of happiness will enhance our lives, we will automatically start to focus on being happy and our lives will become better – without doing anything. It’s an amazingly powerful tool. Just using our imagination to dream of a better life, sets the wheels in motion for us to have a better life.
When we’ve finished reading the book, it may be a good idea to revisit this day and see how much our lives have changed. We may be pleasantly surprised to discover that our lives have improved dramatically especially in the three ways we have identified in this exercise.
Go on – Start the Journey to the City of Happiness - Give it a Go!
KEY #1- SEE THE GOOD
(THE SKELETON KEY THAT OPENS ALL DOORS)
PART 1 – SEEING THE GOOD BY LEARNING THE ROPES
Introduction
In any book written about increasing one’s levels of joy and happiness the first step is to learn how to see and focus on the good things in our life. Since Happiness is a choice, we can choose to live happy lives by learning to see what’s so good about life. We can train ourselves to see the cup as half full, not half empty and to see the silver lining behind every cloud. Accustoming ourselves to stop, notice, appreciate and even smell the roses, makes life more pleasant.
In any society around the world where we find people of elevated consciousness (e.g. Spiritual advisors and guides, guru’s, mentors and life coaches etc.) we will find one consistent message – See and focus on the good things in life! This is the first and most important of the Ancient Keys to Happiness.
Seeing the good in everything is the skeleton key that opens all doors. Every block we have in our lives is due to not being able to see the good that lies within the situation. Once we learn the art of extracting the good from every experience, situation, person or interaction etc. we will find we are able to sail smoothly and happily through life – wherever, life happens to lead us.
When we learn to see the good in our lives we learn to see a great world, we learn to have elevated levels of consciousness, we react with people and our environment more positively, we will become great people who are delightful to be around - we even develop the ability to be happy and content when everyone else around us is drowning in darkness and misery. The more we can see good in our lives, the more we can start relating to the world through this prism and the more success and true bliss we will experience.
First stop
The first stop in the journey of life towards bliss and happiness is to know how to recognise the goodness and sweetness that already exists in our lives. We all need to learn to smell the roses. If we have ever watched people smell roses we would have seen a person focus on the beauty of the flower, carefully position their nose and then take in a deep breath. We can also do this with life – we can focus on the good in our lives, carefully draw close to that goodness (whilst simultaneously being careful not to be pricked by the thorns of life), and then inhaling and enjoying the beauty of living.
There are some things in our lives that don’t really look like roses on the outside. We have some situations that don’t look ‘pretty’, but even then we can still learn to enjoy them. These situations are more like oysters than roses. Many things in life are like oysters, they may look hard and cold on the outside, disgusting and smelly on the inside, but in fact there are pearls of magnificent beauty contained within it. When we train ourselves to search for the pearls and cast aside the oyster, in every part of our lives we will be on the way to true happiness.
“The alarm went off. `Uhhhh. 7:30am Monday morning. I hate Mondays. Maybe I’ll just stay in bed a bit longer – maybe Monday is just a bad dream that will go away when I wake up again... 7:45am. Uhhh. It really is Monday!?’ I dragged myself out of bed bemoaning my fate. `Why do I have to go to that horrible place every weekday?’ On my wall was a picture, a deep sea ocean picture with colourful fish, coral and a few oysters. ` Oysters’, I thought , “what pearl is in this situation? I hate Mondays!’ Then I started to think what life might be like if I couldn’t get out of bed, or if I really didn’t have a place to go on Mondays. Imagine if I was expelled from school, or fired from my job – then I would feel even worse. As I put my shoes on my feet, I thought, “I’m glad I’ve got shoes”, then I thought ,“I’m glad I’ve got feet!” When I started thinking this I noticed my body didn’t feel so heavy, and that getting ready was less of a chore. When I started looking for the pearls in EVERYTHING that I did, I started to feel very wealthy.”
___
“I can’t imagine thinking `how lucky I am to have feet’ would make me feel any better. Yeah - I’ve got feet - hurray! So? Everybody else also has feet and they’re miserable. ”
It’s not what we’ve got, but how much we focus on enjoying what we have that will bring happiness. The whole aim of the ‘happiness game’ is to learn how to focus on the good and keep focused on the good. It is completely irrelevant to us whether other people also have what we have to whether we are enjoying ourselves or not.
“I had been hanging out to get a triple Decker ice-cream cone with chocolate syrup, cream and nuts on top. Every time I thought about it my mouth watered, and finally I arrived at the ice-cream parlour. I ordered my dream ice-cream and just as I went to give it my first lick an old friend that I hadn’t seen for years came up to me and we started to chat, reminisce and enjoy each other’s company. When it was time for us to bid each other farewell, I left the shop, only to realize that I had eaten my ice-cream all up, and I don’t even remember doing it. Ahhh! I felt so frustrated, I had been waiting so long to savour the experience, and in a few minutes of not paying attention it was all gone. “
When we focus on what we have and appreciate it we instantly start to feel happy. The more intensely we can focus on the good things that we are currently enjoying, the happier we become. Conversely, when we get distracted and forget to focus on all the good we have, then we have missed out on the opportunity of fully enjoying that moment of life.
“One day I decided to blindfold myself for half an hour. I walked around like this, trying to do what I normally do. One thing that really bothered me was that I couldn’t see other people’s faces. When another person smiles at me it makes such a difference to me. I only then started to really appreciate the gift of eyesight that I have.”
Give it a Go!
Let’s tune into seeing all the beautiful roses that are in our lives.
Try to sit down for 15 minutes and write down a list of all the good things you have. These may fit into the following categories:
Physical – e.g. head, nose, mouth, clothes, shoes, car;
People – friends, family and acquaintances (past or present); and
Emotional – an appreciation of music, the ability to feel emotions such as love.
See if you can add 5 new ones to each of the categories each day for the next week.
(If you are really brave – try putting the list in priority order e.g. friends would come before shoes, head would come before car etc.)
Why Should I?
This exercise is a training exercise to help us build up our positive thinking muscle. If we can take out time to actually list, categorise and or prioritise all of the good things we have in our lives, then for those 15 minutes we are working out and training ourselves to NOTICE the good things.
The main skill in achieving happiness is to be able to consistently maintain AWARENESS. This exercise enables us to become aware of our blessings. The more we think about the great things we have in our lives, the more we will appreciate them and the more positive we will feel.
A person who does regular training exercises becomes a top notch, super fit athlete. The more we can work at this exercise the more proficient we will become and easier it will become for us to turn ourselves around from being in a negative mood into being in a positive mood.
I have personally seen this exercise transform people from unhappy, negative worriers into up-beat, positive, successful people. Some really committed people have made journals and for YEARS done this exercise and as a result have had major personality and life changes for the better.
Another advantage to concentrating on the good in our lives is that we can actually INCREASE the amount of good in our lives by doing this. Whatever we concentrate on happens more often, this is particularly obvious when we are talking about interpersonal relationship. For example, if we want an employee to show more initiative – then all we need to do is wait for a time when he/she actually does show some initiative (even if it’s only a very minute amount) and praise them, focus on how much we appreciate their initiative, how much we recognise this as a latent talent in them, how good it was for us and how much we appreciated their efforts - that employee will naturally start showing more initiative more often. The same applies with children, if we want our child to eat with their fork, then anytime they even (accidently) touch their fork, we should NOTICE it, comment on it and praise them e.g. ‘I see you have your fork in your hand – Well Done!’
The principle of: Concentrate on the good and the good will increase, also applies to other things in our lives – just try it out and you’ll see for yourself. The more we can notice and appreciate how many material blessings we have the more they will increase. If we notice and appreciate those that we love then our love for them will increase. If we notice and appreciate the good in ourselves then that part will naturally begin to shine forth more.
(In fact this principle works the opposite way around as well. The more we focus on the negative the more that will also increase. E.g. if we notice and comment on somebody’s faults, or what’s wrong with our life then things start to get worse. This is a great lesson to learn: Concentrate on the Good and Ignore the Bad – and we will have a great life!)
If we really want to upgrade our lives– then it great to start by upgrading the way we view our lives. This exercise is guaranteed to make us more positive people and make the good in our lives increase.
Go on – Become a positive person today - Give it a Go!
When Good goes Stale
“When I first get something new, I’m excited and I feel pleased and happy but the feeling doesn’t last.”
When we have something new our full attention is focused on the object. We look at it, we think about it, and how good it is in our eyes we also on some level believe that it is going to give us that illusive feeling of happiness and satisfaction that we are searching for. However, as the newness wears off, we tend to take our minds off how good it is, we start to see its imperfections and we start to realize that it isn’t going to be that all-encompassing provider of joy that we hoped it would be. We do this over and over again – chasing around looking for something that will give us lasting happiness, only to discover in the end that lasting happiness only comes from within.
“I find that I have a great time when I meet new people, but after being with them a while, their charm just wears off.”
We get used to things; it’s the way we are made. If someone makes a beeping noise, at first it’s noticeable and eventually it fades into background noise. All of our senses become dulled by a constant feeling. Who feels the pressure of air on our skin? Who hears the birds tweeting during the day? Who notices the old billboard that hasn’t changed for a few months? Who can smell the distinct odour of their own home? We are desensitized to the world around us, and the only way to re-sensitize ourselves, is to make a conscious effort to remain focused and to tune into the good in our lives.
“When I want to appreciate my health, I think of a time last year when I had to go to hospital and how sick I felt.”
Sadly sometimes the best way to re-sensitise ourselves to the good we have is to contrast it with times when we didn’t have it. The saying ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ can ring true. However, we are not doomed to under- appreciation, we can learn to appreciate.
How much effort goes into learning how to appreciate wine? People take wine appreciation courses, just to learn how to appreciate a simple beverage. Just like people who learn how to appreciate wine become wine connoisseurs, we can become LIFE Connoisseurs. People who are wine connoisseurs don’t get bored of wine, in fact, the more they train themselves to enjoy it, and the more often they use this skill to enjoy it, the more they will be excited to taste another drop. We as Life Connoisseurs can learn to appreciate every experience, every possession, every relationship, just by making a conscious effort to focus on appreciating what we have whilst we are participating in enjoying it.
Give it a Go!
Pick one of the following:
An experience (e.g. eating an apple);
A possession (e.g. your bed); or
A relationship (e.g. your best friend)
and try and become a connoisseur of the thing you have chosen for a day.
For example, if you chose your bed. Notice how the blankets feel on your body. How the pillow holds your head at a perfect angle. How the sheets are crisp and smell fragrant. How the cotton sheet is smooth but airy, the blanket is warm and the doona looks fluffy and inviting. Etc...
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(Pages 1-29 show above.)