What no one told you about happiness

Life isn’t always roses and sometimes, the world can feel just too heavy. And then I meet people who haven’t had their share of pain in their world, or people ask me how I can keep on smiling with all that I have experienced. And the comment thread is that we the people you see to be happy and smiling do a tremendous amount of work on themselves.

But no one tells you this when you’re a child. No on says to you that loving yourself is the key to happiness.

To love oneself means to accept that you are not a perfect being, but behind the imperfections is great courage to be willing to look at the choices and decisions made in life and learn from them.

Being happy also includes being content with your world such as your job, the way you look, your friends and family, where you live and all that you have in the present moment.

But if you keep questioning life lit it has never done you any good, you will never be able to find happiness.

I believe that life is about finding out about right and wrong, trying and failing, wining and losing. These are things that happen as often as you inhale and exhale. Failure, in a person’s life has become as abundant and necessary as air. And instead of focusing on what can be seen as failures, look at the good that has come from it, the knowledge and wisdom you’ve gained.

How can one be happy when life around you feels like everything is falling apart?

Even the smallest amount of effort in creating change will improve the quality of life and your being, whether it is cleaning up your room, helping a friend, taking care of your sick dog or volunteering your time for a cause you believe in and then to keep on trying again (and again), will always work in your favor.

Imagine life as a big scoreboard and noticing that every time you take a step forward, you score a point. And at the end of the game, you can look at it and say to yourself, “Whew! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot.”

Because if you don’t take that step and see a blank scoreboard instead, odds are you’ll say to yourself: “Geez, I didn’t even hit a score today. I wish I had the guts to try out. I could have won!”

Happiness isn’t about driving the hottest car, nor getting the employee of the year award, or beating the sales quota. Sometimes, the most sought after prizes in life doesn’t always go to the fastest, the strongest, the bravest or not even the best.

And here’s the thing I want to stress: Every one has his own definition of happiness.

Happiness for a writer may mean launching as many best selling books as possible. Happiness for a business person may mean success. Happiness can mean being able to create art or lay on one’s deck to read a book.

You don’t have to have the best things in this world. It‘s about doing and making the best out of every single thing. When you find yourself smiling at your own mistake and telling your self “Oh, I’ll do better next time”, you carry with you a flame of strong will power to persevere that may spread out like a brush fire. You possess a willingness to stand up again and try that will make you a genuinely happy person.

When you learn to accept yourself and your own faults, you are without question on your way to happiness. For as long as you know how to accept others, you will also be accepted. For as long as you love and know how to love, you will receive love ten folds back.

And still, it’s a willingness to explore all the thing you were told you can’t do to create a happy life. How many times have you been told that a job that makes you x amount of money will make you happy, when in fact, part of you is like, no that’s job isn’t going to make me happy at all – no matter how much money is attached to it.

“Most of us know that laughter is the best medicine to life’s aches and pain. But most of us don’t know that the best kind of laughter is laughter over self. Coz then you don’t just become happy you become free.”

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Make a choice to choose happiness and sometimes that requires a starting point. Rebel Shine is a 12-week program that you can complete on your own time – one lesson and one action at a time.

Each module is done to follow the lesson before so that at the end of 12 weeks you will not only have discovered your happiness but rose above whatever has been holding you back.