"I know you think this post is for someone else, but it's not. It's for you. Believe it - I love you."

Ten Days to Happiness: Day 3

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhandersen/3336535450/

Just -for today, I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, and nourish it and not abuse it nor neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my will.

Ten Days to Happiness: Day 2

Just for today, I will adjust myself to what is and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fit myself to them.

A short comment on love

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deniscollette/1550512599/

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe
Me."

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.

- Hafiz

Ten Days to Happiness: Day 1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thenovys/2855819349/in/set-72157606830525737/

My brother has been self employed for the last 30 years - he restores old Chevy power cars from the 60s and 70s. About 6 months ago he hurt his back and hasn't been able to work. In fact, he can barely pull himself out of bed each day. It's almost unthinkable for my brother, who cheerfully works 14 hours a day,to have to resign himself to virtual inactivity. Well, I recently heard from my mother that he's taken up art -- he burns designs into weathered barn boards and plans to sell them at the same swap meets where he previously sold restored cars.

His story reminds me of the "Just for Today" tips from Dale Carnegie's book, How to stop Worrying and Start Living. I'll recap one tip each day. Here's the first:

"Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that "most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals.

It's not what happens to us that makes us unhappy, it's how we think about what happens to us. We can choose to view our current situation either as a curse or an opportunity. My brother inspires me.

Poem In Your Pocket Day

The idea is simple: select a poem you love and carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends on April 17. Poem In Your Pocket Day has been celebrated each April in New York City since 2002. Each year, city parks, bookstores, workplaces, and other venues burst with open readings of poems from pockets. Even the Mayor gets in on the festivities, reading a poem on the radio. Visit www.poets.org for more info. Here's my favorite poem, it describes my daughter perfectly:

She Walks in Beauty, Like the Night

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
- Lord Byron

Gratitude = Goodness

Want a natural high? Just tell someone thank you (sincerely). From Psychology Today:

Gratitude is a sentiment we'd all do well to cultivate, according to positive psychologists, mental health clinicians and researchers who seek to help everyone create more joy in life. Feeling thankful and expressing that thanks makes you happier and heartier—not hokier.

The biggest bonuses come from experiencing gratitude habitually, but natural ingrates needn't despair. Simple exercises can give even skeptics a short-term mood boost, and "once you get started, you find more and more things to be grateful for," says Robert Emmons, a leading gratitude researcher at the University of California at Davis.

In gratitude letters like those penned by Peterson and his students, writers detail the kindnesses of someone they've never properly thanked. Read this letter aloud to the person you're thanking, Peterson says, and you'll see measurable improvements in your mood. Studies show that for a full month after a "gratitude visit" (in which a person makes an appointment to read the letter to the recipient), happiness levels tend to go up, while boredom and other negative feelings go down. In fact, the gratitude visit is more effective than any other exercise in positive psychology.