How to be Happy

How to be happy

“Sure” you may say, “I want to be happy, but I have problems. . .” Well, that’s the point. You don’t need to wait until all your problems are resolved to be happy.

What I really like about Happy For No Reason is it doesn’t just pay lip service discussing how important happiness is to your mental and physical health or what happiness is to begin with, but it shows the solid steps you can take immediately to be happy. She clarifies there are seven aspects to be happy. Let me introduce them by their chapter titles:

1. Take ownership of your happiness
2. Don’t believe everything you think
3. Let love lead
4. Make your cells happy
5. Plug yourself to spirit
6. Live a life inspired by purpose
7. Cultivate nourishing relationships

I understand it’s not like you must achieve all the seven aspects fully to be happy (this attitude only puts off happiness to the future), but these are areas we can look at to be more fully — us.
Happiness is our natural state of being

Being happy for no reason is our natural state of being. The seven principles help you to unlearn some of the happiness-killer habits, such as over-thinking (“Don’t believe everything you think” and “Let love lead”) or victim mentality (“Take ownership of your happiness”).

The book is an easy read with lots of anecdotes and even cartoons. (Marci Shimoff is also the co-author of some Chicken Soup For The Soul books.) One of my favorite stories is about a woman called Happy Oasis. She traveled to Bangladesh in her youth when there was a serious famine there. One day, she found herself surrounded by people who were dying.

I’ll skip the middle part of the story so that I won’t spoil your fun reading it. But in the end, she finds it is possible to smile even in such a horrific situation. And with that, she finds she can be happy anywhere in the world, regardless of the situation.
Is happiness important to you?

Our soul’s ultimate purpose is to experience this world and find joy in it. In other words to be happy. And the best happiness is the happiness for no reason. Happiness for a reason shall pass, happiness for no reason comes from your core and yours to keep.

My concern is that many people don’t really care about happiness. The book shows a survey of what people value in life and how happy they felt. Those who value monetary and career success over personal happiness are indeed less happier than those who value happiness and relationships. Well, duh, that’s the Law of Attraction working — you get what you pay attention to.