James Smith’s Info Serv

Author: Heidi DeCoux

The people of Denmark have once again topped the charts as the happiest people on earth. Americans ranked 23rd.

Interestingly, Danes own and consume less than half as much stuff as Americans. The average home size in Denmark is 1,184 square feet while in the US it’s 2,330. On average, a US home has 350,000 items in it!

In the last 30 years, the size of an average US home has doubled, while the average number of people in a household has decreased by half. We are collecting and consuming more and more stuff and require more and more space!

If you want to increase your happiness, consider taking a cue from the Danes by scaling down the amount of stuff you own. The more stuff you own, the more time and money you spend maintaining and storing your things. That’s time and money you could be spending doing something you really love, like traveling!

Scaling down makes getting and staying organized much simpler. When you’re organized, you can live more comfortably using less space. Consider the amount of utilities, land, and items consumed by a 5,000 ft2 home compared to that of a 1,500 ft2 condominium. If you choose to live in a smaller space, being organized makes it possible to live comfortably.
Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Tracey Mulry

The opinions of other people have the ability to inflict great pain and suffering on how you feel about yourself. The truth is – it is irrelevant.

There is only person whose opinion matters. That person can make or break how you feel or think about yourself. Guilt can lead to decisions and regret. Actions once done cannot be uncreated. To live life in the rear vision mirror is one of the challenges faced when creating and designing a new life that includes happiness.

There are many steps in the process of moving forward that include living in the here and now. Changing how those memories are viewed is just the start. It is important to remember that it is impossible to be happy ALL of the time!

It is the solid foundation of inner peace that you want to create. Once you establish this solid foundation, tough situations may throw off your balance, but it is much easier to regain equilibrium and return to place of internal happiness.
Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Pat Matson

We have all heard the old saw “Bloom where you are planted,” and yet each of us has something about ourselves that we don’t like, don’t want, won’t tolerate, and want gone. Mine was being fat. As it so nicely turned out, obesity was the key element in unfolding a strong sense of spirituality and self-understanding.

My parents told me I was a fat baby. Patty Fatty was my nickname. Sweet thing to do to a small girl, eh? They also told me that I looked like Aunt Ida.” They meant my face looked like Aunt Ida’s face, but because I already thought that I was fat, I could see that Aunt Ida was fat, so I thought they meant I looked fat like Aunt Ida. It was just more fuel for the fire.

I self-fulfilled the Patty Fatty prophecy as I entered into puberty, then high school, and then adulthood. I carried those thoughts of fat all my life. Eventually, I was completely successful at manifesting a large body. When you’ve done that all your life, you have a major bad habit to reverse.
Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Some say that the purpose of life is to seek happiness.

Is happiness the purpose, or is happiness the result of another purpose? Is happiness the meaning of life, or is happiness the result of discovering what has heart and meaning for you?

There is not one right answer to this question. The answer lies within each of us regarding what gives meaning to our life.

WHAT GIVES MEANING TO YOUR LIFE?

Perhaps, in seeking happiness, we discover what has heart and meaning for us. Is this how it is for you? Or is it the other way around for you? Is happiness for you the result of loving yourself and others? Do you find that when you are open and loving, that you feel filled with happiness?

Maybe love and happiness are inseparable. Maybe when we are happy, we are naturally loving, and maybe when we are loving, we experience happiness. If this is the case, then is the purpose of life is to seek happiness, or is the purpose of life to evolve in our ability to be loving and compassionate with ourselves and others?

In my view, it is not important to separate out love and happiness. What is important is to discover what gives your life meaning. In my experience, meaning always has to do with love - with loving yourself and discovering how you want to share your love with others. When you discover this, you will likely be happy.
Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Doug Hart

Today it seems that most people are looking for a quick fix to their problems. It really doesn’t matter what the problem is, they somehow believe that someone out there has a quick, painless, and easy way to fix it. Take these steps and you will lose 20 pounds of fat in a week! Or take some other steps and you will make thousands of dollars in only a few short hours! I realize that most of this is the marketing gurus on Madison Avenue trying their very best to make some company money. Ok, enough hype. Those who are of “sound mind” know that there is no easy way to get much of anything worthwhile in life, right? After all if the answer to any of our problems in life was really easy, nobody would have any problems pretty soon. We could all be perfect, in every way…

So if there aren’t any super easy shortcuts to more of our problems, why is it that so many people think that there are also some shortcuts to happiness? Is happiness something that can be found in just one magical action, as if we can somehow solve all of our problems by taking one step? No, I’m afraid it’s not that easy. Deep down I think most people know this, but nonetheless it seems to be a human trait to constantly seek an easier path. Well, since there isn’t an easy path, either to solving all of our problems or to finding happiness, what should we do? Great question, which I had a “easy” answer! The point I’m trying to make is we have to see the big picture in our lives, rather than trying to dissect one problem at a time. It took me a long time to convince myself of this, but I finally got to a point where I stopped “sweating” the small stuff as they say and just took things in stride. If you can approach everything in your life with a positive, I can do anything attitude, problems are so much smaller! I guess what I’m saying is, make yourself bigger and your problems suddenly seem smaller.

So how do I make myself bigger, you ask? There are several ways to boost your confidence, the best way I’ve found is through self-talk. I have discussed this before, and I go into great detail in my book, but basically it’s just repeating phrases that you want to instill in your mind. Like programming a computer, you can repeat these phrases to yourself over and over and after a certain length of time you will believe them! It’s a crazy notion at first, but it works. Say I want to get better at solving problems – I simply write down a phrase or two like “I handle all my problems with ease”, or “I can solve anything quickly and easily”. You may not believe it at first, but after repeating this in this morning several times, and especially at night before going to bed, you will soon instill this belief in your mind. This is just one technique to become a better problem-solver, but as I said before there is no one-step, easy answer. Whether your trying to make better use of your time, become better at solving problems at work, or some other generic problem that pops up on a daily basis, we all need to solve problems. If you want to have more happiness in your life, then being able to solve problems in an efficient way is crucial to that happiness. Problem-solving is a skill which can be learned like anything else, so when you have some crisis in your life, just keep your head, see the big picture, and be confident that you can solve it with ease. Once you get to a point where most of your problems are smaller than you, you can concentrate more on the things that bring you happiness. Like those goals you wrote down, right? You did write them down…

Doug Hart, CHO of GetPassionForLife.com

I think life is more a journey than a destination, and I would like to make your journey much more exhilarating, passionate, and unforgettable! Visit us at the happiness place

Doug Hart, CHO of GetPassionForLife.com I’ve spent many years studying psychology, philosophy, NLP, and motivation. My particular focus is on the biggest question in life - what makes us happy? Join me and together we can discover more about what makes you happier in life. I think it’s more of a journey than a destination, and I would like to make your journey much more exhilarating, passionate, loving, and unforgettable! Take the time to visit us at http://www.getpassionforlife.com and find out why “you are what you think about most”, and how critical your success is to happiness!
http://getpassionforlife.com