Week 1

And so begins Week 1 of my Happiness Experiment. (Go HERE for explanation of what this is.)

Secret #1
Your life has purpose and meaning.


"You are not here just to fill space or to be a background character in someone else's movie.

Consider this: nothing would be the same if you did not exist. Every place you have ever been and everyone you hae ever spoken to would be different without you.

We are all connected, and we are all affected by the decisions and even the existence of those around us."


I fully believe this already. Everything happens for a reason. There is a bigger plan. Much much bigger than us. Even though we may be a tiny dot in that enormous plan, without every tiny dot the plan would not go on. We are all important. Every one of us has a purpose for being a part of this plan. The people we talk to; we talk to them for a reason. The things that happen to us; they happen for a reason.

"Studies of older Americans find that one of the best predictors of happiness is whether a person considers his or her life to have a purpose. Without a clearly defined purpose, seven in ten individuals feel unsettled about their lives; with a purpose, almost seven in ten feel satisfied."

So Secret #1 I already have down pretty well.

Secret #2
Use a strategy for happiness.


"We assume that happy and unhappy people are born that way. But both kinds of people do things that create and reinforce their moods. Happy people let themselves be happy. Unhappy people continue doing things that upset them."


I know it's hard to accept sometimes that we are in the state we are in because of us. The things that happen to us are our own doing. I don't know how many of you have heard of "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne, but she really goes into depth about that. I am a believer of "The Secret" and feel that positive thinking and feeling the feelings of good things happening will really cause those things to happen. And the reverse is true also. Always focusing and worrying about bad things causes them to happen too. The power of positive thinking is indeed very powerful. So focusing on only positive things is incredibly important.

That is my strategy for happiness.

"Happy people do not experience one success after another and unhappy people, one failure after another. Instead, surveys show that happy and unhappy people tend to have had very similar life experiences. The difference is that the average unhappy person spends more than twice as much time thinking about unpleasant events in their lives, while happy people tend to seek and rely upon information that brightens their personal outlook."

Review:
Your life has purpose and meaning.
Use a strategy for happiness.

I am going to focus on these two concepts this week. I am feeling happier already. (Don't you love my positivity?)