Happiness: To Be or Not To Be?

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.~Roman Anderson

Are you searching for happiness? Well, look no further! The good news is, it's closer than you think. Some times people spend all their lives searching for things that God has already given them access to. Happiness is not found, it is a decision within. Happiness is an inner condition within our beings that allows felicity, enjoyment and contentment. If we want happiness, we must allow ourselves to experience it.

Some times we look external of ourselves to find happiness and get very frustrated and disappointed when we only experience glimpses of it. Why, because we are borrowing someone else's happiness. Don't expect to find in others that which doesn't exist in yourself. Happiness is not what you should aim to acquire from relationships or situations but that which you bring with you into them. If not, then you enter those various experiences very needy. Your unfullfillment and displeasure with your life and circumstances then become strains on your relationships, because you are depending on someone else to deliver you from your own internal purgatory.

How to Unleash Happiness:

1. Learn to live through mistakes and not with them
We all screw up. Big deal! Get over it and move on. Failure is an event and never a person. Wipe the dust off of you and move on. Don't carry baggage with you. Baggage weighs happiness down to the ground.

2. Watch who and what you are allowing to influence you
Association yields assimilation. Hang around people who have made conscious decisions to embrace happiness in their lives regardless of the outcomes. These are proactive and not reactive people. Also, watch what media you are allowing to affect your thought processes, whether it be the news, political commentating, movies, or talk radio. This does not mean shun being informed and current on today's issues. Nonetheless, don't let those issues become yours.

4. Shun ignorance, Make informed decisions
Don't just jump into anything, from business deals to personal relationships. Take your time and do your research. It may be a lot of work on the front-end but will save you a lot of misery on the back-end. Anything that is gold will not turn into tin.

5. Be grateful for all blessings and advantages both small and large
Don't look at life as the summation of all things that have gone wrong, rather all the things that have worked together for your good. When you allow yourself to do that, then you begin to create a mental tapestry of the beautiful landscape we all have been given called life.

6. Focus on your strengths
No one is excellent in all areas. The goal is to master what you are good at and outsource that which you are not. Don't dwell on what you can't do. Use wisdom and discernment and surround yourself with people who balance you in those particular areas of challenge.

7. Have your money right
Not too many people are going to be happy in life if there money isn't right. It takes money to survive. Take care of your money and it will take care of you. It's called good stewardship. Don't work for money, let your money work for you. People sometimes understate or exaggerate the value of money. The simple truth is, we need money to live, but we should not live for money.

8. Say Yea! or Nay!
Learn how to say yes! Learn how to say no! Learn how to say both in their proper seasons and situations. This will make life less demanding and stressful.

9. Reverse Stinking Thinking
What we think usually becomes our reality. What we think usually spills out of our mouths. Don't confess negative things about yourself, situations, circumstances or relationships. You will have what you say. Embrace the power of positive affirmations. Don't say "this always or never happens to me". No time for pity-parties.

10. Embrace Transparency
The less fronts you fake, the less energy you expend trying to maintain the facades. Be transparent, what you see is what you get. True harmony is when the public you and the private you are one of the same.

11. Unveil Your Purpose
Discover what your purpose is. What were you birthed into this world to do? When you discover that, pursue it passionately. When we are not doing what we are passionate about it shows in various ways. No one is forcing you to do anything. You can change careers even if all your education and experience is towards something else. Don't let people and responsibilities put you into a box. It suffocates the happiness within.

12. Healthy Body and Minds
Give equal importance to your mental and physical health. Take care of your body from the internal to the external. Take care of your mind from your emotions to your thoughts.