Happiness, Some Things To Think About

While going through my metamorphose from unhappy to happy, I found some writings that help me through.  Some, I wrote.  Some, others wrote.  Here are a few:

Regarding the importance of appreciation in regard to happiness, I, in my own words, wrote (in my first book "Never Buy a Hat If Your Feet Are Cold - Taking Charge of Your Career and Your Life) about a story Ken Keyes Jr. wrote in his book "Handbook to Higher Consciences:"

"A guy, in Africa, is being chased by tigers.  He is running like hell to get away from the tigers when he finds himself at the edge of a cliff.  The tigers are coming at him.  He looks down the cliff and sees a vine that goes from the top to the bottom.  He starts to shimmy his way down the vine.  He gets half way down, looks up and there are those tigers sitting there waiting for him.  Then he looks down and guess what, more tigers down below. 

There he is, mid way through this cliff, he has tigers up above and more tigers down below.  He looks straight ahead and sees a strawberry bush growing right out of the cliff.  He plucks one of the strawberries and eats it.  It is the best strawberry he has ever had."

If your life is tigers up above and tigers down below, always remember there are strawberries right in front of you that are delicious.   Take the time to appreciate them.  I would encourage you to appreciate the things you have in life and focus on them.  Not just appreciate them but focus on them.


Regarding the affects of "Fear of Failure" on happiness, a friend of mine wrote "Beware of the Known:"

It is not the unknown that we must fear.  As children everything was unknown.  But as we get older we start to build walls around ourselves at the limits of what we know.  We build the walls of our own jail.  The fear of failing at doing something unknown.  Too soon we build a castle of security around ourselves.  It has no doors and few windows, it is the known. 

We live and die in there with only an occasional timid peak out a high window at the unknown.  We build the walls of our known so high that we cannot escape, but our souls wither and die with lack of new experiences.  I refuse to build that wall.  Each stone I use to build it, I will use instead as a stepping stone into a new and different unknown.  And when I die, as we all do eventually, my only regret will be that I never got to discover the next unknown. 

I appreciate the known, but I refuse to limited by it.  It can be a trap if you let it and you will never experience the next unknown which is the most special unknown of all, the next one.

Fear of failure stops you from making decisions.  It stops you from making changes.  Most of all, fear of failure stops you from taking risks.  Risk taking is the unknown.  Take some risks.  you will be surprised at how good the unknown can feel. 

Being afraid of failure is never going to lead to happiness.  No risk taking is safe.  Risk taking will lead to happiness.  Sooo, take a risk. You will survive even if it doesn't go your way.


Lastly, when I managed a district of salespeople, I attached a card to their phone (landline phone - cell phones were not invented then - shit am I old).  The saying I created on the card said:

"Is what I'm doing or about to do getting me closer to my objective." 

I wanted my salespeople to think about that before they make a call to their customer or supplier.  What I realized later was that saying was a good way to run my life. 

Every day we do things that have nothing to do with our objective.  One reason for that is we don't know what our objective is.  The one I focused on was happiness.  Is what I'm doing or about to do getting me closer to happiness.

You can have more than one objective, but remember, there is only one number one objective, one number two objective, one number three objective, etc. etc. etc.  Focus on the one that will make you the happiest.