The term happiness is used in the context of mental or emotional states, including positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.
It is also used in the context of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, eudaimonia, flourishing, and well-being.
Discover with Dr. Steve G. Jones's program, how to cultivate a stable sense of joy that endured through good times AND bad. So today, I’d like to share how everyone can build a happier life regardless of their circumstances.
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Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings.
Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms.
More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people.
Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.
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The philosophy of happiness is the philosophical concern with the existence, nature, and attainment of happiness.
Aristotle enshrines happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself.
As a result, he devotes more space to the topic of happiness than any thinker prior to the modern era. Happiness depends on the cultivation of virtue, though his virtues are somewhat more individualistic than the essentially social virtues of the Confucians.
Aristotle was convinced that a genuinely happy life
required the fulfillment of a broad range of conditions, including physical as well as mental well-being.
In this way, he introduced the idea of a science of happiness in the classical sense, in terms of a new field of knowledge.
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Leo Tolstoy - "Happiness is in your ability to love others"
The pursuit of happiness was his true life’s work; it engaged all his powers.
Somehow he knew that he had been made for happiness and that happiness was the end man was made for.
“The craving of a man’s body and soul for happiness,” he wrote in his diary at the age of twenty-four, “is the only path to an understanding of the mysteries of life.”
To desire happiness, he understood, was to seek the meaning of one’s life, and to attain it was to see as deeply into the divine intention as a man could hope to do.
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"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson on Happiness:
Be assiduous in learning, take much exercise for your health, and practice much virtue. Health, learning, and virtue, will insure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem, and public honor.
Happiness is the aim of life. Virtue is the foundation of happiness. The utility is the test of virtue. If the wise be the happy man, as the sages say, he must be virtuous too; for, without virtue, happiness cannot be.
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Author of "The Way of the Small: Why Less Is Truly More", Michael Gellert offers 22 key principles to activate the way of the small--simplify and discover true happiness.
Here are a few of them:
• Less is more, simpler is better. • Know how to persevere and when to quit. • Celebrate the right details. • Know when to go with the flow and when against. • Learn to love vulnerability. • Face adversity with humor. • Sacrifice yourself to the jaws of defeat. • Deal with your own shadow. • Anticipate death's small portal.
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Riches, prestige, everything can be lost. But the happiness in your own heart can only be dimmed; it will always be there, as long as you live, to make you happy again.
Anne Frank, February 23, 1944
You own your own happiness.
You decide in the end how happy or how sad you are long-term.
There are moments in our life where we get sad, depressed, unhappy, and so on.
But we decide if those moments define who we will be in the future, or if we can regain who we really are after the pain goes away.
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Do you ever think about your past?
Do you ever wonder what if you had done things differently?
You should be focusing more on your present and on how to be the best YOU as an individual so when you are faced with new experiences (relationships, family, work, life, etc.),
you can be truly happy.
The key is to be happy now, and then whatever happens to you above
that will be an added bonus.
This concept is so simple but so easy to overlook.
Start applying this to your life now so that you don’t have to miss out on any more time.
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How would your life be different if you cut away the people who try to pull you into their drama-filled lives?
What drama could you cut away from your own life?
There have been extensive studies on how the stress caused by drama has negative effects on our lives and our bodies.
Love yourself enough to break this cycle…
Love yourself enough to take the actions required for your happiness…
Love yourself enough to cut yourself loose from the ties of the drama-filled past…
Love yourself enough to move on!
Happiness is found in the simplest of things. Happiness is found in gratitude, in a kept promise, in a good conversation, in love, in friendship, in an achieved goal, in a fond memory; in all the simple magnificence of life.
Be free of the complexities of drama. Be free of those who live it and those who share it. You’ve been around long enough to see it can never be helpful; cut it away!
Like the plaque on my office wall says, “Save the drama for your momma.”
Happiness is not a thing to be achieved but it is a thing to be experienced; it’s a way of life.
It is a choice one makes to love one’s self enough to live in gratitude without accepting the devilish invitation to complicate things.
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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this article and found something to take away with you.
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If you’d like more real-life examples of daily self-care, you can connect with me on Instagram.