Introduction: From the time we are born, most of us are encouraged to practice being happy. What do I mean by happy? Well, Dictionary.com defines the word as 1. Delighted, pleased or glad, as over a particular thing, 2. characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy: 3. favored by fortune; fortunate or lucky: 4. apt or felicitous, as actions, utterances, or ideas. True happiness I believe is a combination of the 2nd and 4th definitions. It is where contentment meets actions.
I. People need to be happy
A. Happiness adds to overall health (In her online article published on Greatergood.berekely.edu, …show more content…
Notice the details -Alexandra Stoddard When happiness as a choice first became a part of my awareness I was 25. My sister gave me a birthday gift. A book called choosing happiness. I’d like to say that book changed my life immediately. I am fortunate to be able to say that it changed my life eventually. In the immediacy of that moment I chose to be angry at her for not understanding the darkness of the depression, anxiety and pain I lived in daily. Wouldn’t it be nice to simply “choose happiness”. When I was 29 my sister gave me another gift. An option. I went to live with her in Chicago and on the train ride there I had time to analyze the last 15 years of my life. And had time to read. The book I had randomly taken out for this purpose was the one she had given me four years earlier. Choosing Happiness. Keys to a Joyful Life. By Alexandra Stoddard. On the second page I found it. “Simply being aware of the wonderful things that are happening in our lives now greatly increases our happiness.” By the time I reached my destination my outlook had begun to …show more content…
Be there for other people. In case you haven’t noticed yet, I have had the good fortune to be blessed with positive, happy, uplifting people throughout my life. One day I noticed something. When I contributed to the happiness of someone else, I felt happy too. In her book When words matter most: Thoughtful Words and Deeds to Express Just the Right Thing at Just the Right Time, Robyn Freedman Spizman comments on choosing words wisely. Deciphering between people who are positive and those who are more negative she says “…words and acts of kindness become our fuel, our invaluable source of energy. Choosing words wisely enables us to use them to their fullest potential.” She goes on to describe that “The one thing most people who are at ease with self-expression have in common is that they speak from their