Manhardeep Singh

The Essence of Freedom

October 2, 2022
Life is too hard and too risky in the eyes of many. By contrast, others are such proponents of a virile existence, demanding great courage and giving great pride, that they are ready to leave the coziness of their home to scale Mount Everest and breast the elements for the sheer joy of conquering the summit. Whatever the perspective, the nature of things remains unchanged. There are rules, necessities and duties, and limits, possibilities and impossibilities. Until doom, one can accept them and make the best of them, much to one’s pleasure and honor, or one can do the opposite and suffer the consequences. The choice between these two options is the very essence of freedom. Personally, I have no use for the second option: a self-inflicted misery that is without the slightest doubt a pitiable way of life.

The first option, on the other hand, is a pleasurable and honorable alternative that I find compelling, though uphill. It is applicable to any situation encountered in the course of one’s living venture, provided one is not unfortunate to the point of being hopelessly unable to cope. The range of this applicability corresponds with the range of one’s adaptability. It is normally considerable, despite the tendency to cling to old gratifying habits even after they have become impracticable or unsuitable, owing to a change of situation. One can be weaned from such habits onto new gratifying habits, in the same way as a baby can be weaned onto solids. The more the change is significant and one is reluctant to adapt to it, the more the weaning process is difficult and long in producing the desired effect. Again, the only option worthy of one’s attention consists in taking things as they come and making the most of them, for one’s sake and that of others. The reverse is foolish and harmful, a deplorable waste of humanity.

On the whole, the power to live in a well-adjusted and high-minded way and the freedom to choose this way in preference to the alternate, illegitimate, way are the foundations of the life one builds. The exercise of this power does not necessarily imply a principled resignation toward the status quo. One may be faced with a remediable evil that calls for a struggle to remedy it, effectively and rightly. In that case, living in a well-adjusted and high-minded way entails accepting the need for this struggle and the means of waging it, and sparing no effort to attain one’s end. Ills are a test of will, an opportunity to show dignity.

They are also an opportunity to probe and appraise one’s inner resources. Over the years, I have improved my situation and especially my attitude, whose negativity was the most unfavorable and improvable aspect of my life. In so doing, I have discovered my true richness. Nature has endowed me with an adaptable capacity for happiness within the limits of my changeable reality. According to my observations, this capacity is not unusually great, compared with that of most people. I am even tempted to think it is somewhat lagging behind.
During that time, the riddle of life had more or less baffled me. Yet, laboriously, with the help of many books and much thought, I had managed by degrees to clear it up, enough to find a meaning to my life. This riddle is comparable to a mire: The slower you go through it, the deeper you get into it. Perhaps thinkers are commonly untalented in the art of living and their saving grace is their dogged determination to redeem this lack of talent by dint of studying the human soul. Amusingly enough, these untalented individuals are often perceived as gifted, once they have seen the light and reflected it with the numerous mirrors of an elaborate analysis, after a tentative and protracted search in the dark.

This sort of overcompensation is typical of people who experience difficulties in a certain area, but refuse to admit defeat. While some fare well in this area with a minimum of effort, they try hard to overcome these difficulties, with the result that they often fare better than the others. Their redeeming feature is their willpower in the face of their shortcoming, which they use as a reason to redouble their efforts, not as an excuse to throw in the towel. This is a recipe for a worthy success. They discipline and surpass themselves, and thus proudly turn things around.
Ignorance and Fantasy

September 29, 2022
Are beliefs not often the children of ignorance and fantasy? Consider the heavenly view of the world that young souls entertain at the height of their innocence, when their youth has been surrounded by love and filled with happiness. Hear their laughter. Dreams expand in a vacuity of knowledge like a laughing gas and induce the blindest, the purest joy.

Ignorance is bliss, as they say, because it spares us the mental restraints associated with knowledge (which reveals the limits of reality and hence the impossibility of our fantasies). It is the ultimate playground where the mind can build castles in the air, create a wonderland, and live delightedly in this kingdom of reverie. It paves the way for the reign of error, as it leaves us to believe whatever we like. Everything that is desirable is realizable, if not real, until we find evidence to the contrary. Santa Claus eventually dies of our old age – when we are no longer so young, so green, that we are easily fooled by a tall story.

In truth, however wise we may be, we are still at risk. We spontaneously indulge in fantasies about the world here below, which is never totally known, or the beyond, which is unknowable. We are always tempted to believe that our health, our relationships, our career, or any other part of our life, will be wonderful, or that our death will not be an end, but a passage from here to a paradisal hereafter. This temptation is irresistible for many when they discover a charismatic fortuneteller or spiritual leader who professes this belief, which remains unproven nonetheless. Our believing is then the result of ignorance and fantasy, plus faith.
An example of self-deceit that concerns young idealists and betrays their warm-blooded aspiration for perfect love is the illusive passion they often experience toward attractive members of the opposite sex whom they little know. By perfect love I mean a complete and durable harmony at every level – physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual – between two lovers. It involves friendship to a high degree, as the words “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” suggest. While it includes lust, it transcends and transfigures it.

Pop songs are common vehicles for this ideal, which entices many young souls. I am thinking of young men in particular, who are usually quick to fantasize about pretty young women and fall madly in love with them, or rather with a fantastical image of them. This quickness is typical of their ardent and imprudent youth. It needs nothing more than a few smiles and nods, a few gracious words of agreement, to make these young men imagine they have found a soul mate, as they pour out their inner self – their sense of what is good, true, right, or sacred. A few auspicious signs and, voilà, they take the pretty young women for dream girls and are besotted with them! A few misleading signs, in fact. Every charm hides a cause for alarm.

If, in the struggle for survival and happiness, society is a cure for individual limitations (an imperfect cure to be sure, with side effects), it is also a pill hard to swallow. Civility is a smooth sugar coating that eases the swallowing. Give thanks to those who phrase their discontentment with delicacy and embellish it with a compliment and an encouragement. No nagging, no gagging. Sometimes civility excludes honesty and amounts to well-meaning or self-serving hypocrisy. It turns into servility through a mix of kindness and weakness, or through pure selfishness. One way or another, some people are fooled, kept in the dark, while they should live wisely, in the light of knowledge. They are denied truth: the opportunity to conceive of their true situation and achieve their true purpose.

Young men, among the fantasizers I referred to earlier, are often lured by the social graces of pretty young women. The poor fish take the hook and eventually discover they have made a mistake, like many others in the same boat. The dream girls were ordinary maidens or vixens who first behaved and talked infinitely sweet, and later proved lovable in a limited way or revealed their sour temper.

A long intimacy is a good test of a couple’s true nature. It always strips relationships of the silky appearance they sometimes have initially, when seduction overrides every other consideration. This appearance is superficial and deceptive like the outer layers of an onion. Once it is removed, after a succession of changes that marked a gradual return to naturalness, conflicts arise. The truth is uncovered; tears are shed.

Many young fantasizers part from their lovers at this point. They embark on another relationship until the next disillusion, the next dissolution, then embark on another relationship, and so forth. They do the same in other areas of life, starting this or that with high expectations and quitting upon the first difficulties, time and again. They never settle for less than perfection; they never build anything to speak of.

Some of these fantasizers stop this nonsense after a number of disappointments and finally change into brave realists. Their bravery distinguishes them from other disenchanted souls who give up hope to give in to laziness with a clear conscience. These defeatists confuse their attitude with realism and suffer nullity or mediocrity rather than fight for excellence, which is possible, unlike perfection. In their view, humans are in their element only when fantasizing, like fish when swimming. In fact, humans – who are adaptable – are closer to amphibians than to fish. They can come back to earth without dying of frustration, and even better, with a chance to live happily, thanks to a blend of struggle and resignation that yields joy and serenity.

Brave realists know and accept the conditions and limitations of happiness. They think it all the more precious as it has a high cost and is bound to be lost sooner or later. They also understand that although one may indulge in a fickle existence for a while, one must eventually commit and apply oneself to a particular relationship, study, or career, in spite of imperfections and difficulties, if one wishes to achieve something worthy of mention. Nothing good can come from a search for better that always leaves one thing for another.
Honesty

September 26, 2022
Those who pride themselves on their honesty should also concern themselves with this principle: The effectiveness of honesty depends on a person’s willingness to face the truth, which may conflict with this person’s desires and provoke denial.

In such a case, how can one promote this willingness, despite this conflict? The answer to this question could prove useful to anyone who seeks to be effectively honest with people in denial. Ultimately, it could benefit these people, whose denial is contrary to their best interest. I go on the assumption that truth, or the conformity of thought to reality, is the sine qua non of vital efficacy.

Health, pleasure, successful careers, and harmonious relationships require that we know the needs and capabilities of our nature, and the workings of the world. The absence of this knowledge leads to accidents, illness, suffering, failure, and death. Therefore, the first object of our desires should be truth, or the knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. Why then are people often unwilling to face it?
I believe there are two reasons for this unwillingness. Firstly, the desire to know the truth, which originates in the desire to live happily, spontaneously degenerates into the desire to be right, to avoid the insecurity and shame associated with error and ignorance, and also to avoid the effort to learn. Thus fear, pride, and laziness are obstacles to the pursuit of truth and happiness. People are unlikely to admit they are wrong when they are, unless they possess courage and humility. Whoever takes their good to heart should help them develop these virtues.

Secondly, the truth may be known from experience about a happy way of life. The desire to know the truth then turns into the desire to see the truth last. Mental inertia becomes the law, proportional to the force of attraction exerted on the mind by this happy way of life. Any upheaval that breaks the status quo is denied: “I cannot believe it; this cannot be happening.” Reality is deemed unreal because it no longer tallies with the desired truth. Denial can therefore be regarded as a deviant process that conforms facts to ideas, instead of the opposite. Reason is overthrown and emotions reign, as one strives to prove reality wrong to spare oneself the loss of a happy way of life and the pursuit of another, this loss and this pursuit being associated with grief, strain, and doubt, or even despair.

To help a person acknowledge an undesired truth about a radical change in reality, one has to couple honesty with wisdom to heighten this person’s awareness of the human capacity for adaptation. This capacity is best illustrated by the example of people who have suffered a terrible misfortune and progressively discovered a new outlook and a new happiness, more enlightened and satisfying than the old ones. In addition, one has to stimulate the will of this person, who is left with a formidable challenge: to start her or his life over. Lastly, this heightened awareness and this stimulated will may weaken at times, calling for reinforcement. All in all, against the unwillingness to face the truth, the effectiveness of honesty is always difficult and uncertain.
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September 25, 2022

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Happiness

September 22, 2022
Throughout history happiness has been a central and controversial topic, as it embraces our entire being that forever aspires to it in numerous and often contradictory ways. After a quarter century of relentless investigation, here is what I have to say about it.

Having said this, even this sort of happiness is a product of positive thinking and positive action, with good fortune lending a helping hand. In short, it is a product of will in relatively favorable circumstances. But isn’t it peculiar to imply that happiness can be of one sort or another? Are there not simply happiness and unhappiness? I think not.

The sort of happiness that the sage talks about is compatible with misfortune. It is preeminently a doing from within – while without, the only prerequisite for it is that the sage be alive and capable of thought. It is a feeling of serenity, of being at peace with his situation and his conscience, as a well-adjusted and fully committed servant of life, of humanity, of God as he sees them.
However conscious he is of the subjectiveness – i.e., the individual limitations and hence the imperfection – of his view, he does live by it with utmost faithfulness, if also with a willingness to reevaluate it critically when he catches himself out in a misstep. His wisdom is forever a work in progress; it is always laced with some form of foolishness, which leaves him open to ridicule.

Humility and compassion, plus humor are therefore qualities that he cultivates. He mocks and forgives himself, and above all strives to improve. He shows no complacency, but an acceptance of his humanness that he is intent on bringing to the highest possible degree of truth and nobility. And this delicate blend of resignation and struggle alone – in any situation, favorable or not – is indeed the secret of his happiness, which admittedly is a dry manner of joy that fills the mind rather than the heart.

It follows that this happiness leaves something to be desired: happiness in the fullest sense of the word (a state of fulfillment, when everything is going our way, in terms of results as well as efforts), which is a joy, ever so sweet, that fills both the mind and the heart. When the sage experiences this supreme happiness, he rightly feels blessed, and knows how precarious it is. Furthermore, he accepts this precariousness, or the fact that suffering and ultimately death loom ahead. Only battles are won in the war of life that will inevitably – despite every valiant effort to prevail – end in defeat.

Some will say that happiness in its so-called fullest sense leaves something more to be desired: the power to make this happiness infinite: immeasurably great and unlimited in duration. Among them, some will choose the path of faith, which allegedly leads to a heavenly afterlife, whereas some will choose the path of reason, which admits of no rosy belief based on wishful thinking and unbridled trust. This path leads nowhere as far as the beyond is concerned, or rather somewhere that is unknown – presumably so different from what is known that it totally exceeds our ability to conceive of its nature.

I count among these proponents of reason, these infidels, to whom the only source of meaning is not a paradisiacal destination, whose existence is supported by no credible evidence, but the journey itself, a rugged and uphill journey to be sure, with an abundance of twists and turns, some of which are propitious, others not. This journey is well worth the trouble, in my opinion. It is so independently of the above-mentioned destination, which people are free to pursue blindly or regard with skepticism (and with detachment to boot, in the best case scenario). It is all about the dignity of living and loving and the pleasure of succeeding in these difficult assignments. From this perspective, the purpose of life is none other than life itself, in partnership with our fellow creatures; and happiness is made possible – within certain limits – by our striving to achieve this worthy, albeit humble purpose.

The limits imposed upon worldly happiness may initially stick in our craw, but after due consideration, as we realize that life without these limits would be death, we accept them, and better still we welcome them. Life is by definition a dynamic state that presupposes a perpetual tension between desires and their satisfaction. Render this satisfaction absolute, you resolve this tension and consequently reduce life to nothing; i.e., something as inert as a stone. And this nothing – this inert something – is death, as I just pointed out. Not a brilliant prospect in the eyes of a life lover!
5 Quick Ways To Ease Stress, Depression & Anxiety

September 20, 2022
No ceremony with this article, let’s go straight into five quick ways that will help you find relief from stress, depression and anxiety.
1. Take regular breaks from the firing line. Working hard without regular breaks is a great way to build up stress and tension. Make sure you have at least one 15-minute break in the morning and one in the afternoon as well as at least 20 minutes for lunch. If possible, eat lunch away from your workstation. Equally, if you have a lot to deal with in your life right now, taking a day, or a weekend elsewhere – longer if you can – to get some breathing space will really help. Even just a day away from the firing line will enable you to get some distance from the problems and help you to gather your thoughts.
2. Regular exercise can help relieve stress, depression and anxiety. Exercise releases endorphins into your system and will give you a natural boost. It will also provide you with a break from brooding and dwelling upon problems and troubles – but only if you perform the right kind of exercises. Avoid: Exercises that allow you to brood (weight lifting, jogging, treadmills) and perform exercises that require your full concentration. Competitive sports such as squash, tennis, badminton and circuit training are all excellent examples. It is important that you do not brood when you exercise because although you will be benefiting physically, you are still stressing yourself mentally and the stress, depression and anxiety will worsen.
3. Stop beating yourself up. Self-deprecation is a huge part of stress, depression and anxiety. Each time you beat up on yourself, you will erode confidence and self-esteem. Never tell yourself you’re useless, worthless, stupid, hopeless, boring, ugly, and a loser. Never convince yourself that other people hate you, that others find you difficult to be around and that you’re better off being alone. You would never deem it acceptable to say such things to other people and you must deem it equally unacceptable to say them to yourself. These words and phrases are powerful and they will hurt you. Accept you’re not perfect and that you make mistakes – just like everybody else does – and cut yourself some slack. From this day, make a pact with me to never indulge self-deprecation ever again. IT IS UNACCEPTABLE.
4. Isolation is another problem experienced by stress, depression and anxiety sufferers. OK, there will be times when you just want your own company. During such times, you can brood over and over again on problems and events and beat yourself up for hours on end. Not good. Instead, use isolation more positively. Occupy your mind by tackling a jigsaw puzzle, a logic problem, a crossword, read a book or perform a hobby such as painting, playing a musical instrument or whatever it is you have an interest in. In this way, isolation will help you to grow instead of causing you further pain.
5. Television, radio and newspapers can all supply you with a daily hit of negativity and help lower your mood. In the main, they concentrate on the negative side of life: crime, corruption, war, scandal and natural disasters and can give you a distorted view of reality. Not to mention the amount of image manipulation they subject you to. Give yourself a break from this negative drip feed and avoid them completely for one week. You may find, like I have, that they have no place in your life after that. Trust me, you won’t miss them.
That’s five, quick tips for you to help fight stress, depression and anxiety. Please give them a try, they’ll all help to boost your mood levels very quickly indeed.
Angry customers – what can we do with them?

September 18, 2022
All is well when it ends well. And until it ends be sure not to panic; no matter how bad it looks. Your customers only want you to do your best when they complain. They can see things that you might miss and every complaint will give you insight on how to improve your business. Here are some tips of handling with complains:

• Be empathetic and calm them down – which means that you should acknowledge the person’s feelings (you don’t have to agree with them to do that). In the NLP practices this is called “to build rapport”. For example, you can say: “I understand how upsetting that might be…”

• Do not defend yourself – you will surely want to say something to defend yourself – don’t! Getting defensive will never help. The issue is not about who is right, it is about helping a disappointed customer and keeping their repeated purchases.

• Take responsibility – no matter whether you are guilty for the complaint or not, you still represent your company. Therefore, you should take the “blame”. By doing that, you emphasize the company’s trustworthiness and reliability. If you can’t handle the issue alone, be sure to hand the customer off in a classy manner.

• Make commitments – only that way the customer is assured that something will be done in a precise time interval. You have to state your actions clearly, for example: “Our team will come to your place tomorrow at 15:00”.

• Make some offer before they ask for refund – that’s what most of your customers say in cases of dissatisfaction: “We want our money back”. But that is the least you want, because it leaves your customer disappointed in your company. You will have to be cleverer and offer them something of a value for their trouble and time before they ask a refund.

• Do more – every company can do things the regular way. We are sure you can come up with something more. After all, the complaining customer only wants you to be better, and you can use this interaction to prove that you can.
• Walk the talk – make sure to do what you have promised.

• Follow up – check back with them after some period. Phone them up or e-mail them and ask if they need anything else and if the arrangement you made works properly. That way you show them that you care and can also trigger word-of-mouth referrals.

At the end, let’s use the statistics as a guide: it shows that about seven out of ten complaining guests will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor.
Are celebrities happy?

September 16, 2022
Before we begin asking if the celebrities are happy, let us first find out what is happiness? If I feel good for an hour a day, and horrible for the rest of the day, am I happy? What if I am happy for eight hours a day and horrible for the rest of the sixteen hours? Am I a happy person? For most of us happiness is a state that is not permanent. We are not happy throughout the day. At least majority of us are not.

What is happiness? Happiness means a sense of deep contentment. A cheerful outlook. An attitude of positive thoughts. A person who has these qualities is happy during all the times of the day.

How about celebrities then? They have name, fame and wealth. They can, not only buy whatever they desire, but they can also buy a loved one. They can buy anything. Their name is splashed around in the media most of the times. Every news about them is awaited by the general population. Celebrities may not have been born with a silver spoon in the mouth, but the current spoon is mostly that of gold. So they must be happy!

But sadly, happiness is away from most of them. Speaking of contentment, most of them are not only not feeling any contentment, but are frustrated. They are jealous at times. And they have no deep sense of peace in them. Rather their life and minds are full of turbulence most of the times. They are at times so dissatisfied with their own life that they wish to run away from themselves. This they cannot do, and therefore substances that take them away from their own realities are so often used by them.
Happiness has something to do with money, but only to an extent. Happiness has nothing to do with fame, if you are not satisfied with yourself. Whatever the world may say, unless one has self-esteem, one can never be happy. All of us sail in the same boat. Most of us are living unhappy lives most of the time. Let us get happiness that will give us a satisfied sense of living. Let us strive for happiness in our own inner world.
4 Better Ways to Handle Complaints

June 28, 2022

If you WOW a customer at the Moment of Truth , the average customer will walk away and tell 5 people about the experience.

If you fail to meet the customer’s expectations at the Moment of Truth , customers are very likely to tell 11 people about the problem they had with your company.

If you drop the ball with customers at the Moment of Truth , but rebound with a quick customer recovery, research shows that the customer will tell up to 17 people about your service recovery.

Did you get that? Customers will tell 5 people if you WOW them, BUT if there’s a problem and you quickly fix it, they will tell more than 3 times as many people as they would if no problem had occurred at all.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to grow your bottom line is to equip your front line employees with skills to respond to complaints and problems in such a way that they completely regain goodwill and restore the customer’s confidence.

Read on to find out exactly how to do this.

1. Resolve problems as quickly as possible. The faster the resolution, the better the chances for maintaining loyalty. TARP, Inc. found that ninety-five percent of complaining customers would remain loyal if their complaint was resolved on the first contact. That number dropped to seventy percent when the complaint was not immediately resolved. In fact, the speed of resolution has a greater impact on future loyalty than the resolution itself. Strive to resolve complaints on the first contact and when that isn’t possible, final resolution should occur within 5 – 10 business days in order to maintain and build loyalty.

2. Give Them Something. Coupons, product samples, and other freebies have a definite impact on loyalty after a service failure has occurred. Years ago American Airlines gave me 7000 frequent flyer miles after I experienced a gruesome delay. And that gift of miles, was enough to make me come back. But don’t take my word for it: A study conducted for the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP) found that 58% of complaining consumers who received something in the mail following their contact with consumer affairs departments were delighted, versus only 40% of those who did not receive anything. Giving customers token items, such as coupons or product samples, after a service failure both increases the perception of value and serves to maintain loyalty.

3. Only allow the friendliest, most helpful, and diplomatic employees to talk to customers. Employee courtesy and attitude are critical factors in regaining the goodwill of customers who have experienced a problem. Customers contacting a company with a problem want to talk to a person who is courteous, professional sympathetic and understanding. Additionally, employees must be skilled in communicating with diplomacy, expressing empathy, and representing the company credibly and convincingly during times of consumer distress. The attitudes and behaviors of frontline professionals form powerful lasting impressions with customers whether these impressions are positive or negative.

4. Encourage your people to “Be Gumby”. You remember Gumby don’t you—the green rubbery figure that Eddie Murphy portrayed so hilariously on Saturday Night Live? In my seminars I teach employees to “Be Gumby” when it comes to dealing with customers. By being Gumby, I mean do whatever it takes to service customers. This includes being flexible, bending over backwards, making a 180 degree turn when you were heading another direction on a non customer-impacting task. It might even mean standing on your head. The idea is to be completely customer focused. Being Gumby guarantees you’ll always make customers happy.
Happiness Takes Work: 5 Choices to Create Happiness

June 23, 2022

All of us have met people who just seem to be happy most of the time. Perhaps you have assumed that these people are just naturally happy, or that they are the lucky people who have an easy life, or they had really loving parents. Most of the time, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Happy people are making specific choices regarding their thinking and behavior. Happy people consciously choose to think and behave in ways that result in happiness. Unhappy people are unconsciously thinking and behaving in ways that create unhappiness.

Following are five of the specific choices that happy people make:

OPTIMISM

Happy people see the glass as half full, while unhappy people choose to be pessimistic – to see the glass as half empty. Optimistic thinking does not just happen – it is a choice regarding how you see life. Optimistic people are optimistic because they CHOOSE to be optimistic. Instead of allowing their ego wounded self to be in charge with all its doom and gloom, happy people put their loving adult self in charge and open to the wonderful possibilities that life has to offer. Happy people realize that their thinking is the beginning of a creative process that leads to manifestation. By thinking in positive ways, they move themselves to act in ways that manifest their dreams.

KINDNESS

Happy people choose to be kind and compassionate toward themselves and others. Happy people have learned that how they treat themselves and others determines much of how they feel. Happy people do not wait to be happy before being kind to themselves and others. They realize that their happiness is the RESULT of their caring behavior, not the CAUSE of it. They are kind, caring and compassionate whether or not they feel like it. They have chosen this way of being, and their happiness is the result.

FORGIVENESS

Happy people do not harbor resentment toward others, even others who have been mean and hurtful toward them. They realize that resentment makes them unhappy, so they choose to allow people their humanness and forgive them their hurtful behavior. Because happy people tend not to take personally others’ uncaring behavior, they don’t get their feelings hurt in the same way that people do who take others’ behavior personally. Happy people recognize that another’s behavior is really about that other person, so they move into compassion toward themselves and others rather than into judgment.

ACCEPTANCE

Happy people realize what they can control and what they can’t. They live by the Serenity Prayer, accepting the things they cannot change and changing the things they can. Unhappy people are constantly trying to change people and circumstances and do not accept their lack of control. As a result, they are constantly frustrated. Happy people realize they cannot control others and outcomes, so they focus on what they can control – their own thinking and behavior. Acceptance of what they can and cannot control leads to happiness and inner peace.

GRATITUDE

Finally, happy people are consistently grateful for what they have, rather than complaining about what they don’t have. They notice the many gifts and blessings that come their way and they frequently express gratitude for the everyday things in their lives – the beauty of nature, the food they eat, the smile on a friend’s face, their ability to see, hear, walk, talk. Even many disabled people who may not have the blessings of eyesight, hearing, speech or legs are often happy people because they focus on what they do have and what they can do, rather than focusing on what they are missing out on.

If you want to be happy, then you need to recognize that happiness is the result of your thinking and behavior, not the cause of it. If you choose to focus on becoming conscious of what thoughts and behavior make you feel happy, you can become a happy person – regardless of your present circumstances. Happiness does not just happen – it takes work!