Be Happy! by Robert Holden

Be Happy! by Robert Holden

Author:Robert Holden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Self-Help
ISBN: 9781401921804
Publisher: Hay House
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00


Interestingly, scientific research shows that when people dream about the future, they tend to imagine themselves happier and more successful.3Just like Jennifer, they score themselves higher on the happiness scale in the future. For example, the score is 6 out of 10 for now, and 8 out of 10 in the future. The reality, however, is that when you arrive at your future, you do so with a 6-out-of-10 mindset or “familiar point.” So what do you do then? Well, either you change your mind and enjoy your new “now,” or you create yet another happy future and you engage once again in an unending pursuit of happiness.

I asked Jennifer to do “The Happiness Walk-Through” again. And this time, when she stood next to the number 7, I asked her to answer this question: For me to be 70 percent happy, what would have to happen now? On number 8, I gave her the question, For me to be 80 percent happy, what would have to happen now? And on number 9, it was, For me to be 90 percent happy, what would have to happen now? Interestingly, none of Jennifer’s answers were about the world being any different; they were about her being different.

Jennifer said things like, “I will enjoy watching my daughters grow up,” and “I promise to take all of my vacation days this year,” and “I am going to start painting again,” and “Tomorrow evening I will take my husband out on a date, down by the river, to watch a beautiful sunset together.” At the end of this short twenty-minute exercise, Jennifer was back in her life again. She was no longer chasing happiness; she was simply making conscious choices—creative choices—that would help her to enjoy more happiness now.

A few days later, Jennifer sent me a beautiful calligraphy card with a famous saying on it: “Happiness is not a destination; it is a manner of traveling.” She also wrote these words inside the card: “Robert, you have just saved me 20 years of my life. There I was, busy saving up for some imaginary happiness pension, and dreaming my life away in the meantime. What ‘The Happiness Walk-Through’ has shown me is that to have a happy future I have to start now. Happiness isn’t a pension you save up for; it’s an inheritance you are meant to enjoy now!”

Happiness Ticket

If you take the pursuit of happiness to mean “a chase” or “a striving,” then it is most likely you will relate to happiness as a “thing,” “reward,” or “place” that must be won or arrived at. If this is so, you will start to look for the “big tickets” that will win you your prize. Eventually, you will forget that happiness is a way of being, and something you can choose; you will convince yourself that happiness can only be experienced “if,” “when,” and “after” something has happened first.

So, what do you have to do to win the prize? In the course I give students a piece of paper called “The Happiness Ticket.



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