Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

It seems Thursday July 10 has been claimed as International Happiness Day.

I figured it was worth coming out of happiness hiatus to tell you about that!

The purpose:
"To create a focus on individuals and communities choosing Happiness in every moment. It’s a scientific fact: People who experience a preponderance of positive emotions tend to be successful and accomplished across multiple life domains."
[http://www.internationalhappinessday.com/]

You can check out the site and participate - they have a bunch of suggestions for how to do that.

Or you can have a DIY happiness day and simply choose happier thoughts throughout the day. There are plenty of tips for that right here at Happiness Strategies.

Or - and this might be my favorite - you can choose NOT to be happy. Buck the trend. Stay miserable. You’ll find everything you need for unwavering woe in the series How *NOT* To Be Happy.

You don’t even have to wait till July 10th.

Hey everyone,

Sadly, I’ve had to turn off comments as I’ve been getting stampeded with SPAM (a SPAMpede, perhaps?). I’ll try turning comments back on after a few days and see if the spambots have moved on.

Thanks for understanding.

Stay happy!

Michele

PS My other project is progressing nicely, so I expect to resume happiness posts and the newsletter in a few weeks. See you then.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to let you know I’ll be taking a short break from blogging here as I work full-time on another project.

If you need a happiness refresher while I’m gone I hope you’ll find inspiration in the archives. In particular:

• 101 Happiness Strategies
  Strategies for boosting your happiness level, based on happiness and positive psychology research
• Happiness Life Strategies
  All kinds of ways to be happier everyday - from the serious to the frivolous
• Happiness Media
  Summaries of interesting media reports related to happiness
• How *NOT* to be happy
  A favorite of readers - how to embrace your inner miserati and keep joy at bay.

See you again soon!

Michele

Technorati Tags: happiness,happiness strategies,life strategies,happiness media,how not to be happy

Image: Lukman Kusuma

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

If you have any doubt about the wonderful job our brains do, you’ll be won over by this riveting, disturbing and emotional story from Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist and stroke survivor.

‘How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their brains from the inside out?’ she asks.

In this fascinating 18-minute talk from last month she describes the euphoria and misery that accompanied the mental machinations of experiencing a stroke, and of perceiving the world alternately from the 2 sides of her brain - the parallel-processing right brain and the serial-processing leftie.

She speaks with obvious heartfelt conviction of the life-changing wisdom it brought her - the peace, synthesis and joy that’s possible by perceiving life through the right bran.

Technorati Tags: Right brain,left brain,stroke

1. Woody Allen

Failed motion picture production at NYU and City College of NY. Oh and also failed English at NYU. Before winning Oscars for directing, producing and writing.

2. Thomas Carlyle

Loaned The French Revolution manuscript to a friend whose servant used it for kindling. Carlyle went home and re-wrote the whole thing.

3. M*A*S*H

Richard Hooker received 21 rejections for this novel before it was published, became a bestseller, a huge movie success and a massively popular TV series.

4. Star Wars

Yoda et al were rejected by every Studio in Hollywood. Eventually 20th Century Fox relented and the film became one of the highest grossing movies evah.

5. E.T., Forrest Gump, Home Alone, Speed and Pulp Fiction

All were passed on by major studios. All are now iconic pieces of popular culture.

[Source: Adapted from Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul (2000) by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Bud Gardner]

The lesson from the lessons:

It’s only failure if you stop there.

More Quick Tricks

Image: carlsilver