Self Help Writings

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We all have choices. Our choices sometimes make us happy but other times they make us sad. What we choose to do and how we chose to act affects our immediate life and our long range goals. We can make some changes in our choices and learn to love life again.

When I was growing up, neighbors on either side of my parents were as different as night and day. Our neighbors on the left side had a beautiful, enormous pecan tree that allows produced many pecans. They were older adults without children of their own. For some reason, they did not seem happy. He worked extra hours and they screamed a lot when he was home. It seemed that they never had people over except for a few family members who were acted the same of them and were never smiling, friendly or happy. They used to yell at us for picking up some pecans from under their tree, even though they never gathered them. They were cranky and really didn’t want to be friendly.

The neighbors on the right side were always smiling and laughing. There always seemed to be outdoor activities which involved their children and neighborhood children. Family and friends were always visiting their house. They never seemed to mind having extra kids around and always had time to share stories, fun and laughter.

Watching both neighbors and getting to know them as I grew up, helped me to learn how to be happy. I learned what kinds of things made people happy and what kinds of things prevented that happiness from touching others. There are certain things that can be done to find peace and happiness but other things just need to be avoided to continue your happiness.

The first thing that we must do is decide that we want to be happy. Being happy is not a given with life. Everything that we do plays a part in our happiness. When we decide to look at the good things in our life, we are on the way to finding our true happiness. How can a person figure out what the good things that make them happy are? You have to be both alert and aware of your feelings of happiness and make special effort to remember what it was that brought on that happiness.

For example, if walking and visiting with neighbors makes you feel good and cause you to smile, then you want to remember that walking and visiting is one of your objectives. Another happy action that might notice is when you are doing something with your family, like having a picnic or going to a movie or having a family night of playing games. Things like that cause a lot of laughter which is very good for your physical and mental health.

Once you decide that you want to be happy and notice the things that do make you happy, then you have a great chance of finding happiness for yourself. The biggest thing to avoid is negative people who want to bring you down. It is very important to stay away from those who are always “down in the mouth’, unpleasant or chronically unhappy. It is extremely hard to learn to love life if we are surrounded by those who do not. Those people who always seem to be upbeat, positive people are the ones that you want to be close to, if possible.

Everyone knows someone who is never happy and always complains and talks negatively. Those kinds of people are exactly the ones to avoid. Surround yourself with people who want to have fun, laugh and smile a lot. That is a certain method of finding happiness.

And finally, when you find yourself not quite as happy or upbeat as you want to be, then you need to smile. Think of something or somebody that makes you happy and smile. Pretend that special person or special activity that makes you happy is right there with you, and just think how good it feels and keep smiling. Smiling is probably the best way to change your whole attitude because it does trick the brain into releasing the good endorphins which makes you happy. You know the saying: “Smile and the world smiles with you; Cry and you cry alone.

Looking back at my childhood, I realized that our neighbors on the left did not want to be happy because they never did any kind of family activities when they did have people over and I don’t remember them smiling very much. They were always fighting and not surrounding themselves with happy people. The neighbors on the right side had many family affairs, and there was always laughter and smiles. They chose to be happy and the happiness came to them. So choose to find happiness, reach for it and achieve it, smiling all the while, and the “world will smile with you”.

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