"Some things we need to give up to find happiness"

"Happiness can only be found if you free yourself from all other distractions." 

~Saul Bellow

Today, let's talk about happiness.

 I prefer to call it joy, which I believe to be more lasting and more profound.

Happiness, it has been said countless times, is always a choice.

 Easier said than done, but every morning, we have that option ~ 

 "Will I choose joy or will I wallow in whatever it is that is getting me down?"

Dana Saviuc writes that to be happier,
 we must learn to give up our need to always be right.

"There are so many of us who can't stand the idea of being wrong 
~ wanting to always be right 
~ even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others.

 It's just not worth it," she says.

Taking responsibility

I've found myself in this situation a few times in my life, weighing my options and remembering what best-selling author Wayne Dryer asked:

"Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?"

Second, she advocates, "Give up on blame."

 Psychiatrists say, when your 'locus of responsibility' (or 'locus of control') is always external,
 you make the people you live and work with miserable because even when it's your fault,
 you tend to always finger-point.
 However, when you do that, remember, that there is only one finger pointing outward,
 and there are three pointing back at you.

 We should therefore take responsibility for our own life, our own feelings and our own mistakes.

Third, and this is my personal favorite,

"Give up complaining."

No one can make you depressed unless you allow it to.

 The trick is always in how you look at the situation.

 Now, if you are on the receiving end of the complaints, you can try to infuse positivity into the complainer's life, but if that doesn't work, you aren't obliged to receive someone's negative energy forever.

Swim with the tide

Fourth, "Give up your resistance to change."

Change is good.
Change will help you move from A to B.
Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you.
Follow your bliss, embrace change ~ don't resist it.

 As I grew older and saw more of life, survived personal heartbreak, loss and other personal and professional wars, I learned more and more to embrace change.

This morning I just read a beautiful quote by Joel Fleischman:
"You can swim against the tide and get exhausted,
 or you can tread water and let the tide sweep you away,
 or you can swim with the tide and let it take you where it wants you to go."

Reinhold Neibur's Serenity Prayer is my mantra whenever I find myself facing a huge change, and it has given me peace no matter what it is that I have to face.

Lao Tzu explains it this way:
"Painful endings are only portals to new beginnings."
So embrace change when it comes.

Lastly, the writer Dana Saviuc suggests,
 to bring joy,
 you must
"stop living life according to other people's expectations."

If we are always concerned with what other people think about what we say and do, or what we are, we hold ourselves hostage to them.

When we are too busy pleasing everyone, something inside of us dies little by little, and suppressing so many things sets us up for illness.

When something bothers us, let's speak up, we are entitled to that.

Let us pay attention to our dreams, to God's leading and never be afraid to convey what is in our hearts and minds.

Don't worry, be happy!!! ☺

Have a blessed Sunday, everyone.
Looking forward to "Sunday family time"...

Your-sister-in-Christ,
SAL ♥