Change Your Paradigm – Deciding To Be Happy
There’s more to life than the American Dream we’ve been sold. In this series I present an alternative way to view the world and your surroundings. There is so much out there to experience, enjoy, and incorporate into our lives. It’s all there for the taking, but getting there is the hard part. In this series I show how to to change your paradigm to give yourself a fighting chance of taking the path less less traveled to live up to your potential. How you act on what you discover is up to you, but I hope you take your own plunge into a happier and healthier life.
Deciding To Be Happy
Happiness. Is it the result of the forces of nature all conspiring together to give you no choice but to feel content and blissful? Or is it a decision?
Since the very start of this website I’ve had this prominently displayed in the upper left corner. I truly believe that happiness is a decision. Had I not decided to be happy in Denmark I never would have undertaken this journey that has shown and taught me so much.
In deciding to be happy you must decide that from this moment going forward, every decision you make will positively contribute to your happiness.
Doesn’t that sound selfish?
Maybe. But if there is anything I’ve learned about happiness on this journey it’s that happiness is not something selfish. Buddha has a quote: “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
Chances are, by becoming happier you’ll pursue life differently. Happiness opens up your sense of altruism and compassion and empathy like nothing else.
How Do You Decide?
It’s not as hard as you think. It’s just like a diet. You are making a commitment. When you go on a diet you decide to stop putting unhealthy things into your mouth. You commit to cleansing your body, to improving its health.
Happiness is the same. The pursuit of happiness is really a pursuit of getting to the core of who you are. You have to understand yourself before you can purify yourself. But in the beginning you have to commit to cutting out the negative stuff in your life (kind of like junk food). That may be a lengthy process, full of severing attachment to things you didn’t think you could live without. Then you can replace the negative stuff with the stuff that fuels your happiness and shift your focus to maintaining your newly found happiness.
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