Appreciating All That’s Around Us

"Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give."

• Reflect on what you appreciate and love about your partner, friends, or family members.
• Express your appreciation to them.
• Take the time to see how you can help someone out.
• Slow down for 3 minutes. Let your thoughts and body also slow down while you pay attention to life around you.
• Smile towards the people you meet.
• Make someone else happy. Give him or her a gift of some kind.
• Take fewer things for granted, like your food, the weather, or small gestures. It will inspire and motivate you.
• Take action and create the day you wish to have.
• Say yes to something new.
• Say no to a should that isn't that important.
• Take a 2-minute laugh-break.
• Do what you deep down think is the right thing.
• Stand still for a minute, close your eyes and simply enjoy the sun.

It's a pleasurable emotion brought by a state of well-being and contentment. It’s usually accompanied by an attachment to an idea, a destination or experience. It often weighs profoundly heavier on our subconscious. 

The vision of the life you desire is a destination you shouldn’t ignore as it’s key to understanding your happy place.

If happiness is the destination, joy is the milestone that leads there. Joy comes and passes through without the heaviness of it being a “final destination” because joy is an attitude.

These are some of the best indicators of people who lead happy lives. Happy people feel empowered, in control of their lives, and have a positive outlook on life. 

Action steps: Get into the habit of squashing all negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ones.

People find greatest enjoyment not when they’re passively mindless, but when they’re absorbed in a mindful challenge. This is flow, when we're so immersed in our task that we lose track of time. 

Action steps: Find work  and hobbies that you’re passionate about and that fully engage you.

Happiness lies on transitory things, so simplify your life and possessions to get a clearer path to a better internal life. When stuff, people, and the problems they bring fall away, the resulting stillness allows you to find the self-sufficient joy that resides inside.

Joy comes when you make peace with who you are, where you are and why you are. When you need nothing but your truth to bring peace, then you have settled into unshakable abiding joy.

People should be able to track their happiness in a similar way they track their fitness goals. 

Apps tracking happiness effectively served as a glorified research project. The conclusion: people are happiest when they stop their minds from wandering.

Happiness isn't just a feeling that should be left entirely to chance. There are specific factors that influence your happiness, which can be easily tracked with the right tools.

Geographically close friends (and neighbors) have the greatest effect on happiness.

Individual happiness cascades through groups of people, like contagion. So make friends with people who live near you.

Happiness can come from noticing and embracing a wide spectrum of emotions--both good and bad. 

So don't ignore negative feelings. Embrace them--and then actively work toward overcoming whatever issues you face.

• People who win the lottery are likely to revert to their original levels of happiness after the novelty of the win has worn off.
• It is also true for those who are in major accidents. People generally tend to return to their pre-accident levels of happiness after a period.
• Research has found that the first bite of something delicious is experienced as more pleasurable than the subsequent bites.

Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky has examined this set-point:

A full 50 percent of our happiness set-point is due to genetics. 10 percent is affected primarily by circumstances like where we were born and to whom. 40 percent is subject to our influence.

• They surround themselves with other happy people.
• They cultivate resilience.
• They appreciate simple pleasures.
• They devote some of their time to giving.
• They get immersed in activities that bring joy.
• They nix the small talk for deeper conversations. 
• They make a point to listen. 
• They look on the bright side.
• They make exercise a priority.
• They listen to good music.
• They spend time in nature.
• They laugh a lot.

Meaningful engagement as a key factor of happiness.

When we identify our greatest strengths and recraft our life to use them in our social and family interactions we gain more meaning. 

Blaming the world for your problems is the easy way out. 

It gives you short-term relief, you lie in your imagined victimhood, but ultimately it implies that you are incapable of controlling your own fate. 

"You can only fix your own imperfections and not the imperfections of others. So you may as well get to work on them."