Ray’s Daily
November 19, 2018
Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
Omar Khayyam
Some of the people I meet these days seem to be so worn out that they have given up on life. The good news is that most people I run into are grateful that they have lived so long and look forward to the years ahead. Everyday I see that the good life comes from having a positive attitude.
Years ago Henrik Edberg wrote an article on happiness that I like. I have had to edit for space but here are the highlights.
How to Find Happiness: 7 Timeless Tips from the Last 2500 Years
1. You choose.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
How your view yourself and your world are conscious choices and habits. The lens you choose to view everything through determines how you will interpret what is happening. And from your interpretation you act. And all of this becomes your life.
- Focus on the present, not yesterday or tomorrow.
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
James Oppenheim
You only have now. And now. And now. Yesterday is a memory and you cannot change it. Tomorrow is just a fantasy in your mind right now. So live more in the now, focus on the present moment and today.
- Don’t forget to be grateful.
We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
Frederick Keonig
One of the simplest and quickest ways to turn a negative and sour mood into a more positive one is to be grateful.
- Help someone else find happiness.
Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.
Bernard Meltzer
This is certainly one of the most popular ideas I’ve found about happiness. When you make someone else happy by, for example, helping them with something – you can sense, see, feel and hear it. And that happy feeling flows back to you.
- Get rid of a couple of your less valuable desires.
You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.
Eric Hoffer
If you want less instead of more, more, more then your desires are more likely to be fulfilled. And if you throw away a few of those desires that you may not really want or need that much anyway you’ll probably start to feel less stressed and worried.
- Do what you like to do.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
Albert Schweitzer
- Or at least do something.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
One of the best ways to not find happiness is just to hold yourself back and do nothing. Seldom show up. Paralyze yourself through over analysis. It’s not always easy to take action, it can be scary and hard and difficult. But if you don’t take action you’ll be missing out on a lot. Including many moments, people and experiences that can bring you a lot of happiness.
~~~
Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.
Dale Carnegie
~~~
I always know God won’t give me more than I can handle but there are times I wish He didn’t trust me quite so much.
~~~
Two Mississippians are walking toward each other, and one is carrying a sack. When they meet, one says, “Hey Tommy Ray, whatcha got in th’ bag?”
“Jes’ some chickens.”
“If I guesses how many they is, kin I have one?”
“Shoot, if ya guesses right, I’ll give you both of ’em!” “OK.
Ummmmm…five?”
~~~
Where was the toothbrush invented? Arkansas.
If it were invented anywhere else, it would have been called a teethbrush.
~~~
Wanting to lose weight, a woman placed a picture of a shapely, pinup model INSIDE her refrigerator to remind her of her goal. It worked like a charm as the woman discovered that she had lost ten pounds in the first month of using this method.
The downside to this was that her husband spent so much time going into the fridge to look at the picture that he ended up gaining fifteen pounds!
~~~
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
~~~
The showers in my daughter’s dorm turned scalding hot whenever a toilet was flushed. To warn others, residents would yell out, “Flushing!” each time they flushed the toilets. During one of my daughter’s visits home, a friend stopped by to chat for a while. I was explaining how my daughter was acting more distant now that she was in college, and that she didn’t tell me all about her life the way she used to. Suddenly we heard my daughter call out from the bathroom, “Flushing!”
“Wow!” said my friend, “How much more do you want to know?”
~~~
“Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Rosenbloom are pleased to announce the birth of their son, Dr. Jonathan Rosenbloom.”
~~~
A blonde was summoned to court to appear as a witness in a lawsuit. The prosecutor opened his questioning with, “Where were you the night of August 24th?”
“Objection!” said the defense attorney. “Irrelevant!”
“Oh, that’s okay,” said the blonde from the witness stand.”I don’t mind answering the question.”
“I object!” the defense said again.
“No, really,” said the blonde. “I’ll answer.”
The judge ruled: “If the witness insists on answering, there is no reason for the defence to object.”
So the prosecutor repeated the question: “Where were you the night of August 24th?”
The blonde replied brightly, “I don’t know.”
~~~
Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.
Ausonius
~~~
Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
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Comments on: "It is up to you" (1)
Hi Ray,
So sorry to hear about the foot pain you’re enduring. I’ve been enjoying all your articles. You have a big heart and I thank you for sharing with all of us. 😍
Dianne