How to be Happy in the Current Economic Circumstances

How to be Happy in the Current Economic Circumstances

Being happy is not a matter of chance. People who are happy have certain things in common; much of this involves the choices that they make. Much research has been done to ascertain this and make it accessible to those of us who’d like to be a little or a lot happier.

9 Choices of Extremely Happy People

• an active intention to be happy (this may cause many people to say/think “DUH!” however, although most folks want to be happy, they don’t set an active intention to BE happy.)
• accountable for one’s thoughts, actions, feelings (having set that intention, take note of your thoughts and your actions for a month and see how many of them are actually not supporting you becoming happy/happier).
• identify what makes you happy and make that central in your life (most folks don’t actually prioritize these things to the extent that they schedule them into their lives, make them a regular part of their lives. Regard this as you would any other new habit that you want to establish for yourself: practice it daily for a month, get an accountability buddy to check-in with about whether you’re doing it, get a buddy to do it with on a regular schedule).
• find meaning in the face of tragedy or adversity (happy people, without being pollyannas, look for the lesson or the gift in difficult circumstances. This often leads them to greater self-knowledge, greater sense of family or community, greater sense of their own values and priorities.)
• be flexible and open to life’s many options (you may’ve noticed that life rarely goes according to our plans yet, to the extent that we can roll with it, it works out ok- sometimes better than our plans. This attitude is key to discovering and fulfilling one’s life purpose. I’ve written some posts about this and the connection to happiness and making more money.)
• appreciate one’s life and the people in it (this is another one that may prompt the “DUH!” response because it’s so obvious, yet, people do not do this to the degree that they could)
• give unceasingly without expectation of a return (research shows that people who have and practice a generosity of spirit have a much greater level of satisfaction and fulfillment in their lives. Volunteerism is actually on the rise in our culture.)
• be truthful with yourself and with others (it’d be pretty difficult to be happy if you’re deceiving yourself or others. It just feels so awful. The truth, however painful initially, always feels better and affords the opportunity to connect with yourself and others that wouldn’t exist otherwise.)

Given the extreme degree of stress and suffering over current economic conditions, I will write more on this topic because we can always choose our response to circumstances that seem out of our control. As Swami Satchidananda said “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” How many unhappy surfers have you seen?

What are the qualities of happiness that don’t depend on changing circumstances?  You, knowing yourself, enjoying your Self, enjoying being alive, being as alive as possible, appreciating what is, acceptance, self-acceptance,….. keep the list going.

Money and Happiness

Money and Happiness

Our culture holds a belief that more money is better and also that more will make you happy. Is it true? Here are a few statistics:

Americans’ average personal income has increased more than two and a half times over the past 50 years, but their happiness level has remained the same. However, rates of depression grew 10 fold!

Nearly 40% of the people on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans are less happy than the average American.

Once personal wealth exceeds $12,000 a year, more money produces virtually no increase in happiness. Income also does not noticeably influence satisfaction with marriage, family, relationships, or ourselves. Furthermore, research has shown that while you can motivate people in the short term with external rewards, it is short-lived and people feel more passion for and derive more pleasure from doing what they freely choose and most enjoy and these will decrease when external rewards remain in effect.

A recent survey showed that, at all income levels, people think more money will definitely make them happier.

Billions of dollars are spent by advertisers each year to convince you that you’re not ok the way you are and that you need things- lots and lots of them- to make you happy. 3 hours of television will expose you to roughly 68 messages of this sort.

All of this plays into the myth of “I’ll be happy when……” Ask yourself if you find yourself saying or thinking any of these:

I’ll be happy when I have the perfect job.

I’ll be happy when I have the perfect mate.

I’ll be happy when I have the home of my dreams (or owning my home at all).

I’ll be happy when I have a baby, a family.

I’ll be happy when I have more free time.

I’ll be happy when I get recognition or acknowledgement or appreciation.

I’ll be happy when I can retire.

I’ll be happy when I lose weight.

In fact, you can be happy right now even if none of those things has or will happen<ed>.

It’s simply a matter of choice and mindset. Your choice and your mindset.

THE SECRET TO INCREASING YOUR INCOME MORE EASILY, Part 3

THE SECRET TO INCREASING YOUR INCOME MORE EASILY, Part 3
Let’s say you’re fortunate enough to have a sense of your purpose.  Now what?  It’s not all downhill cruising from here.  You’re likely to meet up with resistance internally and externally. People resist consciously and unconsciously. The reason we resist is fear, for a few reasons: 1. We know that it is a road we must travel alone. Even if others are going with us, we now answer to a higher call and must follow that inner guidance. 2. Many people will not and cannot understand what we experience because they have not experienced it themselves so we must seek out people who understand the process so we can relate our experience. 3. We have an ego.

Your ego, the part of you that you think of as “I”, makes choices and takes action in the world. It is responsible for your safety. One of the primary ways that the ego ensures safety is to maintain the status quo.  The ego is not keen on any growth or change that diminishes the ego’s hold on you or reality as it knows it.  Your ego isn’t going to let you find or pursue your purpose if it thinks that it is or will be unsafe from it’s perspective.

You’re probably aware of your desire to know your purpose, or you wouldn’t be reading this.  Are you also aware of the part of you that DOESN’T want to know your purpose, or is AFRAID of knowing your purpose? If not, sense into it. Watch what arises in you as you entertain notions such as: “what if my purpose tells me to change jobs?”, “What if my purpose doesn’t involve making a good living?”.

Our fears come from our attachments and resistance to step into the truth and accept it’s reality.

Stay tuned for Part 4

THE SECRET TO INCREASING YOUR INCOME MORE EASILY, Part 2

THE SECRET TO INCREASING YOUR INCOME MORE EASILY, Part 2

Discovering your life’s purpose requires choices. The
two most important choices are these: Do I want to know what my
life’s purpose is? And, having discovered my purpose, do I want to
live my life in a way that is consistent with that purpose? However, in contemplating whether to discover one’s purpose, people may fear that which is unknown to them. Contained within this unknown, though, is the part of you that already knows your purpose and how to fulfill it.

In order for us to manifest our purpose, we must be properly trained. Fortunately, the soul develops and executes our training plan. It does this by influencing our decisions and helping us to choose things that will develop us in ways that serve our purpose.
The soul also “arranges” experiences for us that will cause us to grow and develop. These experiences can often be unpleasant, such as car accidents, being fired or laid off, and losing loved ones. However, it is most often our “worst” experiences that can teach us the most. The soul doesn’t cause these things to happen in the normal sense, but often steers us toward learning opportunities that our ego would naturally avoid. Along the way, as we try out different things, we act in ways that are in alignment with our fundamental purpose, and also in ways that are not. While we are usually unaware of the purpose itself, these two ways of behaving feel very different to us when we reflect on our actions and behaviors.

By looking back over our lives and reviewing the qualities of our previous experiences, we may see that there were sets of qualities of experience that correspond to times when we were on-purpose and other sets of experiences that correspond to times when we were off-purpose. By looking for similarities in those times or events, we can draw conclusions about our purpose.
We’re looking for times when we felt fulfilled, passionate, intensely alive, thoroughly utilized, that we make a difference, when things happen easily and seemingly chance coincidences occur to support our goals and projects, and our efforts produce results, as well as times when there is serendipity, flow or grace. At such times, it’s as though the wind is at our backs and is moving us along with very little sense of efforting on our part. The process is enjoyable even if it’s challenging, and we aren’t concerned about having enough energy or motivation to achieve our objectives. These are the times when we are ON PURPOSE although we may not be aware of our purpose as it’s occuring. When we are doing things in our life that support our purpose, our soul and life gives us positive feedback.

When we are out of alignment with our purpose, it feels very
different. We find obstacles at every turn. We have to muster up the energy and the will to follow through and complete things. There is a sense of swimming upstream or walking headlong into the wind and having to effort to move forward at all. We don’t enjoy the process much of the time. We are not satisfied by our accomplishments, or the satisfaction is fleeting. We wonder, at times, why we’re doing what we’re doing, and imagine greener pastures. I call this experience “slogging through mud”.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 3

THE SECRET TO INCREASING YOUR INCOME MORE EASILY AND ENJOYING YOURSELF IN THE PROCESS

THE SECRET TO INCREASING YOUR INCOME MORE EASILY AND ENJOYING YOURSELF IN THE PROCESS

No, this is not from one of those late-night infomercials on T.V.
This is about doing work you love, work you were meant to do, and earning money more easily as a result. This is the connection between money and life purpose.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy!”
—Mevlana Rumi

What do I mean by “life purpose”? I mean it as an answer to questions like:
• Why am I here?
• How can I, given who I am, best serve humanity/the world?
• What am I meant to do?
• What lights me up from the inside more than anything else?
• What work would I want to do if earning a living wasn’t an issue?

Many people aren’t aware of their purpose and may think that they just don’t have a purpose. The good news is that everyone has a purpose, yes, even you. What’s more, you don’t need to go searching for your purpose; it is already inside you. It has been guiding you your whole life, whether you are aware of it or not.

Knowing your purpose can dramatically enhance your experience of
life. Purpose-driven people experience more fulfillment, more
success, and often greater financial rewards than other people.
Paradoxically, people who set out to live their purpose often make
more money than people who set out to make money! This is because we are better at doing our purpose than we are at doing anything else and because we tap into the resources of the universe when we are pursuing our purpose. Some liken it to having the wind at their back. They may be applying themselves intensely to their work, but there’s a greater sense of ease and flow than when they do other work that has no relation to their purpose.

Another incentive for knowing and fulfilling your purpose may be anticipating how you want to feel at the end of your life: to be able to look back on your life with a sense of satisfaction, knowing that you gave it your all, and that your life made a difference and had some significance in a way that’s meaningful to you. Dying people rarely regret the things they did; they more often regret the things they didn’t do and having a sense of having not fulfilled their purpose.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2