Self-Help Happiness Blog

Jeanne Malmgren tries to define happiness, but she finds it’s not that easy.  The article raises some interesting questions about why certain countries rank higher in happiness than others.  But in the end, she answers her own questions: “But you and I both know that happiness isn’t really about where you are.” 

That’s right.  One time I thought I could never be happy if I could not see a tree outside my window, but it was in our tiny Toronto Condo, where all you could see from the window was concrete, glass and bricks, that I wrote my book about happiness.  

In real estate, it might be location, location, location, but when it comes to happiness, it is all about you, you, you.

By the way, about the title to this blog post…I did not say that homelessness is happiness. 

Say what you want about Franc e, but it has just become the first Western nation to seriously consider a “happiness index”.

“We must change the way we measure growth,” President Sarkozy says of his plans to engage two Nobel prize winning economists in the effort to build an alternative to gross national product (GNP), which might look a bit like gross national happiness . 

Read the whole story here.

The things you appreciate and are grateful for should be an ongoing list. Do not let anything get by you! These are the things that bring true happiness and mental contentment. Use this list, too: if there are people on it, take time to let them know how you feel – like send a letter of appreciation. If there is an organization on the list, you could send a letter to the editor in your community. Keep adding to the list. At first, your list will seem “simple” but gradually it will increase in detail as you experience gratefulness for ever smaller things. This is practice in being thankful that you can appreciate what the day brings. Every day say, “I am awake and grateful to be alive!” Whatever the day brings, there is always something to be happy about.

This is an excerpt from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s blog http://www.thingstobehappyabout.com/blog/.  She is the author of 14,000 things to be happy about and the website is http://www.thingstobehappyabout.com.

The third annual World Conference on Gross National Happiness has just finished a couple months ago, and I just came across this interesting report on the conference.  I like this article, contrasting Western and Eastern values.  I can also refer you to a somewhate dated but much more detailed NY Times article on the topic. 

Here is a map of Gross National Happiness among nations:

Gross National Happiness Map

My Christmas wish to you is that you enjoy being you.  There is no greater gift a person can have than self-acualization, to be comfortable with who you are and fulfilled with what you do.  Here is a poem that one of our Daily Dose of Happiness Subscribers sent me on the topic:

Today is right where you need to be
It is where you need to be, to get you to where you are going tomorrow
And tomorrow will be better than any day before
Live life for yourself, be true to yourself, and everything you deserve will fall into place

What makes you “younique”?  Sure, you have a unique retina and a unique finger print.  And your dental records are all your own.  You might even have your own personal file at the CIA, the KGB or Interpol.

But what makes you most unique is your experiences, thousands even millions of moments that nobody else has shared.  So many moments that have shaped who you are.  So many reactions that have programmed you how to process information and react now to any situation in your own special way.  So many lessons you have learned, even without realizing, that inspire you to achieve, to share, to act, to think and to do everything you do.

Keep those younique experiences coming.

Why not start the week with an inspirational quote by Samuel Goldwyn that should make you feel happy: 

When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two people
happy.

From our Daily Dose of Happiness ezine yesterday:

MENTORING

When we reach a hand out to help someone else, we lift two people with that one arm.  Talk about miracles!

What do you do with your free time?  Is it productive?  I don’t mean by “productive” whether it makes money or builds something.  Here is a checklist for your downtime activity:

- Does it get your heart rate pumping?
- Does it make you think in new ways?
- Does it improve the world?
- Does it deepen friendships?

If not, maybe it’s time to rethink how you spend your free time.

Since we touched on that whole can-money-buy-happiness topic yesterday, I though I would share this very wise quote from Bernard Meltzer.

“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you
lost all your money.”

Related article (this is an old one of mine) : Money hunting can’t buy happiness.

More happiness quotes.