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10 Signs of Happiness

By Meredith Dault for readersdigestca

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Though it may come in different forms for different people, most human beings are in pursuit of the same thing: happiness. It may be closer than you imagined. 

For some, happiness can be a pesky, fair-weathered friend, forever on the loose. The fact is that you have everything you need for happy living right now! Seeing it may simply be a matter of tweaking your own thinking so that you can appreciate what you’ve already got. Look for these signs and say hello to happiness!

1. You Live Your Life With Integrity

Living a life that’s in line with your own values and belief is important for happiness.  “That means that the things you say you believe in are the things you do,” says “Happy Guy” David Leonhardt, the author of Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the Nine Habits of Maximum Happiness.  For example, if you value the environment, do you mind your carbon footprint? Or if family is important, do you make time for them? Figure out what’s important and live your life accordingly.

2. You’ve Embraced Living In The Moment

You’re fully awake and aware, and concentrate your energies on enjoying the present, rather than worrying about the past or the future. “All we have is right now,” says Michelle Keeley, an executive leadership coach with Fruition Strategies, “and life is just made up of a series of moments.”  Enjoy them.

3. You Express Gratitude Regularly

Being grateful for the things you have—and sharing that gratitude—will lead to feelings of satisfaction and happiness.  “When you’re performing an act of kindness or giving someone a compliment, you can actually feel an energy shift in your body,” says Todd Keeley, Michelle’s brother and business partner. Seek that feeling out more often.

4. Your Work Satisfies You

If you find satisfaction in the things you do, then you’re well on your way to living a happy life. “The more meaningfully we’re engaged and the more we believe that what we’re doing is meaningful, the more happy we are,” says David Mensink, a psychologist with the student counseling centre at Dalhousie University.  And it doesn’t necessarily have to be linked to a career.  “For example,” says Mensink, “you can be meaningfully engaged in caring for children,”

5. You Enjoy Harmonious Relationships

Whether it’s at work or at play, being at peace with yourself and the world around is a surefire way to find happiness. Practice respect and patience as you go about your day, whether you’re interacting with family, co-workers or with your partner.

6. You Keep Your Inner Critic On ‘Mute’

If you’ve got a little voice in your head telling you you’re never good enough and you’re never satisfied, then odds are good you won’t find happiness either. “Choose to let go of negative feelings and thoughts,” says Todd Keeley, “You won’t find happiness until you do.”

7. You Aren’t Afraid Of Change

Recognize that change is constant and you’ll be more ready to embrace happiness. “Then choose to respond to life, rather than react to it,” says Michelle Keeley.  You’ll feel more in control and will be better able to adapt.  Stay open to the opportunities change can bring.

8. You Enjoy The Simple Things

Taking pleasure in small things will help you build a big picture of happiness. Take time to enjoy a well-cooked meal, a beautiful painting or a spring bulb poking up through the earth.

9. You Give Back

Happiness is contagious, so make sure you spread it around. “Giving back to others and sharing is the ultimate way to inspire happiness in your life,” says Michelle Keeley.  “Because what you give out will come back to you ten-fold.”  Whether you volunteer in your community or share your smiles—it all counts.

10. You Don’t Take Life Too Seriously

Having a sense of humour can help you keep things in perspective. Make sure your life is filled with plenty of laughter!

Before Lock Down - Get out of your Comfort Zone !!

Once there was a king who received a gift of two magnificent falcons from Arabia. They were peregrine falcons, the most beautiful birds he had ever seen. He gave the precious birds to his head falconer to be trained.

 

Months passed and one day the head falconer informed the king that though one of the falcons was flying majestically, soaring high in the sky, the other bird had not moved from its branch since the day it had arrived.

 

The king summoned healers and sorcerers from all the land to tend to the falcon, but no one could make the bird fly. He presented the task to the member of his court, but the next day, the king saw through the palace window that the bird had still not moved from its perch. Having tried everything else, the king thought to himself, "May be I need someone more familiar with the countryside to understand the nature of this problem." So he cried out to his court, "Go and get a farmer."

 

In the morning, the king was thrilled to see the falcon soaring high above the palace gardens. He said to his court, "Bring me the doer of this miracle."

 

The court quickly located the farmer, who came and stood before the king. The king asked him, "How did you make the falcon fly?"

 

With his head bowed, the farmer said to the king, " It was very easy, your highness. I simply cut the branch where the bird was sitting."

 

We are all made to fly -- to realize our incredible potential as human beings. But instead of doing that, we sit on our branches, clinging to the things that are familiar to us. The possibilities are endless, but for most of us, they remain undiscovered. We conform to the familiar, the comfortable, the mundane. So for the most part, our lives are mediocre instead of exciting, thrilling and fulfilling.

 

So let us learn to destroy the branch of fear we cling to and free ourselves to the glory of flight.

 

 

:) KeeP SmilinG ForeveR :)

Pixar Lore: The Day Our Bosses Saved Our Jobs

Original Source

Pixar is one of my favorite companies on the planet. I love its films, its creative and constructive people (The Incredibles director Brad Bird is among the most intriguing people I've ever interviewed), and its relentless drive toward excellence. There's a pride that permeates that place, along with a nagging worry that, if they don't remain vigilant, mediocrity will infect their work. So I was thrilled to be invited to give a couple of talks about Good Boss, Bad Boss at Pixar last Fall. After the first one, Pixar veteran Craig Good (who has been there at least 25 years — I think he said 28 years), came up and told me an astounding story.

The story occurred to Craig because he'd just heard me claim that the best bosses serve as human shields, protecting their people from intrusions, distractions, idiocy from on high, and anything else that undermines their performance or well-being. For him, that brought to mind the year 1985, when the precursor to Pixar, known as the Computer Division of Lucasfilm, was under financial pressure because founder George Lucas (of Star Wars fame) had little faith in the economics of computer animated films. Much of this pressure came down on the heads of the Division's leaders, Ed Catmull (the dreamer who imagined Pixar long before it produced hit films, and the shaper of its culture) and Alvy Ray Smith (the inventor responsible for, among many other things, the Xerox PARC technology that made the rendering of computer animated films possible).

Lucas had brought in a guy named Doug Norby as President to bring some discipline to Lucasfilm, and as part of his efforts, Norby was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn't bring themselves to do it. Instead, Catmull tried to make a financial case for keeping his group intact, arguing that layoffs would only reduce the value of a unit that Lucasfilm could profitably sell. (I am relating this story with Craig's permission, and he double-checked its accuracy with Catmull.) But Norby was unmoved. As Craig tells it: "He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off. Finally came the order: You will be in my office tomorrow morning at 9:00 with a list of names."

So what did these two bosses do? "They showed up in his office at 9:00 and plunked down a list," Craig told me. "It had two names on it: Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith."

As Craig was telling me that story, you could hear the admiration in his voice and his pride in working for a company where managers would put their own jobs on the line for the good of their teams. "We all kept our jobs," he marveled. "Even me, the low man on the totem pole. When word got out, we employees pooled our money to send Ed, Alvy, and their wives on a thank-you night on the town."

Certainly such extreme staff protection is rare and sometimes it might not even be wise. I can't say that every proposed layoff is immoral or unnecessary. But consider the coda: a few months after this incident, Pixar was sold to a guy named Steve Jobs for 5 million bucks and, as they say, the rest is history. And some 25 years later, that brave shielding act still drives and inspires people at Pixar.

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I want to thank Pixar's Craig Good, Elyse Klaidman, and Ed Catmull for telling me this story and letting me use it. If you want to learn more about Pixar's astounding history, I suggest reading David Price's The Pixar Touch. It is well researched and a delight to read. While you're at it, check out Alvy Ray Smith's site and Dealers of Lightning if you want to learn about the impact this quirky genius has had on computer animation and other technical marvels.

 

:) KeeP SmilinG ForeveR :)

Our limitations exist only in our minds !!

Here's a story about George Dantzig - the famous Mathematician who's contributions to Operations Research and systems engineering have made him immortal.

As a college student, George studied very hard and often late into the night. So late, that he overslept one morning, arriving 20 minutes late for Prof. Neyman's class. He quickly copied the two maths problems on
the board, assuming they were the homework assignment. It took him several hours to work through the two problems, but finally he had a breakthrough and dropped the homework on Neyman's desk the next day.

Six weeks later, on a Sunday morning, George was awakened at 6 a.m . by his excited professor. Since George was late for class, he hadn't heard the professor announce that the two unsolvable equations on the board were mathematical mind-teasers that even Einstein hadn't been able to answer.

But George Dantzig, working without any thoughts of limitation, had solved not one, but two problems that had stumped mathematicians for thousands of years. Simply put, George solved the problems because he didn't know he couldn't. You are not limited to the life you now live. It has been accepted by you as the best you can do at this moment. Any time you're ready to go beyond the limitations currently in your life, you're
capable of doing that by choosing different thoughts. All you must do is figure out how you can do it, not whether or not you can. And once you have made your mind up to do it, it's amazing how your mind begins to figure out how.

A person is limited only by the thoughts that he/she chooses.

:) KeeP SmilinG ForeveR :)

THE SPEAKING TREE

We Create Our Life

Talk: Osho

    Always wait for something good and it happens, because whatsoever happens, we create. In fact, we create it; we sow the seeds. But we sow the seeds unconsciously, that's why we think that some accident has happened. Accidents never happen, nothing is ever accidental. It is a cosmos, it is not a chaos.
    Everything is absolutely based on a fundamental ultimate law: nothing ever goes wrong. Yes, sometimes it looks to us as if it has gone wrong, because we were expecting something else. That’s a problem – we do one thing, we sow one seed and we expect something else. We sow the seeds of one kind of flower and we expect some other kind of flower, so when the flowers come we are frustrated. But flowers come through the seeds, not our wishes.
    So remember: We constantly create our world. There are people who are constantly afraid that something wrong is going to happen, and then it happens! And when it happens, they are proved right. They have made it happen… People who are afraid will always find situations in which fear grips them. People who are loving will always find situations where love blooms. Because this existence goes on giving you that which you project.
    Life is our project. We are our life's creators. God has created man, but as freedom. So there is an essential freedom inside; now it is up to you to choose what you would like to happen to you in life and then you will see that it starts happening. One thing is linked with another, one thing leads to another, and slowly you have taken a certain route; then all other alternatives are dropped.
    When a child is born, all the alternatives are open; he is utterly free. He can be a musician, poet, wrestler, a politician, he can be anything... an Adolf Hitler, a Gautama Buddha; anything is possible. But sooner or later choices start coming and he starts moving in a certain direction. Then that direction remains his world. So always remember: whatsoever has happened to you, you have been the cause of it. Sometimes it hurts that you are the cause of all the misery that has happened to you; you feel sad. But there is no need to feel sad, because through it, you come to an understanding, and then things need not happen the same way again to you.
    And the second thing to remember is: For every hurt or happiness always feel thankful, because sometimes pain is needed for growth and pleasure is not needed. So whatsoever happens, make it an opportunity to grow. Use that opportunity as a springboard for something higher. A friend dies, there is pain, there is anguish and misery, but use that opportunity. Meditate on death. Your friend's death has reminded you of a very significant phenomenon that death is there.
Don't arrange your life without taking note of death. Maybe existence has given you a message to get ready: the friend is gone, you will be gone one day, so prepare for death! Life is a small affair; a 70-year affair in which one-third will be gone in sleep, another one-third will be gone in earning bread and butter, another one-third in other stupidities... Nothing much is left! It is not a big thing, it is a very small phenomenon; compared to death it is nothing. Death is eternity.
    The Madman’s Guide To Enlightenment, courtesy Osho International Foundation. www.osho.com 

 

:) KeeP SmilinG ForeveR :)

 

MIND, BODY, SPIRIT & YOU

Secrets of success
Swami Kriyananda says recall an occasion when you felt tired, even exhausted, but unexpectedly found something you really wanted to do and felt energised to do it. Perhaps, an old friend invited you to a restaurant. And at once, your fatigue vanished
Where did that burst of energy come from? Yogananda used to tell his students, “A little gram of your flesh contains enough latent energy to keep the city of Chicago supplied with electricity for a week. And yet,” he continued, smiling, “You complain of feeling tired! It is because you live too attached to the body, rather than seeing yourselves as waves of God’s infinite energy!” The following practices will help you develop a more willing and enthusiastic attitude. Be happy! Most people think happiness comes as a result of escaping some difficulty, or of fulfiling some desire. Happiness, however, comes primarily from holding happy thoughts. Happiness increases one’s awareness, moreover, for it naturally includes others in one’s wellbeing, it embraces fresh experiences and welcomes opportunities. Smile readily. You’ll never be happy in the possession of mere things. Make it your philosophy of life to simply be happy! Practice affirmation. The simple statement, for instance, “I live wholeheartedly Here and Now!” when repeated several times a day with deep concentration, can help to transform mere intentions into reality by giving them force and definition. Give your full attention to everything you do. Live wholeheartedly in the Here and Now. The reality of the past is that it has helped to create the present. The future will be determined by how wisely—or unwisely—you live now. Do your best today, and the results will take care of themselves. They will reflect the very best that is in you. Don’t be attached to success or failure. Successful people work primarily for the joy of doing what they feel inspired to do. They are less concerned with returns on their labour. Detachment helps a person live fully in the present—to do his best now.