Why do we make it so difficult to be Happy? You know the old saying “a frown is a smile upside down”. You would think in today’s world they would have a pill for this too. I just read a book about 25 ways to be happy. When you wake up you have to say a couple of lines over and over. You have to look in the mirror and smile at yourself. You have to hug 5 people everyday, you get the idea.
I’m not saying these are bad things, but the burden of trying to do to many things to be happy would make me more unhappy than if I just stay at the level of unhappiness I am now.
Why is it one person is happy with $100.00 and another is not? It’s a reaction from the past, simple as that. If a women was physically abused in the past and another wasn’t, compare their reactions. The abused women would react defensive, jumpish to a man’s sudden touch while the other women might warm up to it. The point is it’s a reaction to the past.
Men and Women have tried to physco-analyze and make a big business out of helping people be happy and the world seems more screwed up and unhappy than ever.
If you buy into the idea that happiness or unhappiness is a reaction then we can move it into the category of a habit. So here’s the trick. Change the habit you change the reaction. Change the unhappy reactions and you are happy. No therapist or 25 steps to do.
For example lets say you react to a situation by drinking. You get drunk and a series of things happen which make you unhappy. Without having to go back 40 years and analyze your childhood, what he said what she said, you recognize your reaction.
Now to make it simple you just have to work on changing your reaction. Once you find a reaction which is positive you do it over and over until it becomes a habit. The key is this new reaction must make you happy. You might also be surprised that this new reaction might affect other areas that troubled you.
Be patient. You and I know how hard it is to change habits, but we also know it’s much better to be happy than unhappy. Life can’t always be so complicated and maybe this can be one of those simple things you can fix.
By Ric Bai
Stuffs I Read 