by Charly Mann

One's progress in life is perhaps best measured by the level of tranquility one attains. Tranquility is an inner calmness coupled with the absence of anxiety or agitation. The more tranquil you are, the more successful you will be as person, and the greater influence for good you can have on others. As you become more serene you will also become aware that there is much more to life than material comforts and physical pleasure.

People who have a tendency for calmness are 50% less likely to develop dementia than people who are high strung or prone to stress. This is because the ability to handle the rigors of life without significant anxiety protects the area of the brain called the hippocampus where dementia originates.

There are many paths for developing inner peace, but they all start with having good character. Good character rests on little more than being ethical and having a clear conscience. Selfishness is the main enemy of good character. The more we want for ourselves the less time we have for the solitude and reflection we need to scrutinize our thoughts and motivations.

Becoming more laid back is another great way to enhance your peace of mind. Too often we focus on things that are not important, or which we cannot do anything about. For example, most of us spend far too much time trying to second-guess the motives of people involved in our lives. One should also refrain from trying to interfere with how someone else lives their life. Other people do not always conform to our standards, but it is not our job to reform them. Once a person becomes an adult, the only time to offer advice is when it is requested. No two human beings are the same, and each has a unique way of living their life. Anyway, I happen to believe that God is far more capable than me at correcting someone else's behavior.

If you want to attain tranquility you need to be adaptable. Much of life is challenging and unfamiliar. Being congenial to whatever life has in store will enable you to harmoniously adapt and endure the obstacles along the way. At the same time, it is important that you avoid taking on more tasks and responsibilities than you are capable of doing well. Know your limitations.

Cultivating patience instills not only peace of mind, but a focus on achieving the kinds of goals in life that are most worthwhile and provide our greatest sense of fulfillment. Things like being a great parent, learning a foreign language, or becoming an expert on a subject, take years or decades to master.

Finally, I find there are two things in my own life that always make me content. The first is spending quality time with a close friend, and the second is reading a good book.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.

Anne Frank

The great teachings unanimously emphasize that all the peace, wisdom, and joy in the universe are already within us; we don't have to gain, develop, or attain them. We're like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight. We don't need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky; we merely need to open our eyes and realize what is already here, who we really are -- as soon as we quit pretending we're small or unholy. 

Whenever you think of it, ask that you be surrounded by all the Goodness and Light you can imagine. “Good” is such an obvious thing, it’s difficult to define. We all know what we consider the best, the highest, the greatest, the goodest. You can think of “Good” as in “The Good Earth,” or “Good” as “God” with an extra “o!” added.

Light is a concept that seems to permeate almost every religious belief and spiritual practice. The Light of Nature to the Light of the Holy Spirit; the Light of the Sun to the Light of the Son. Whenever you call upon this Goodness and Light, it’s a good idea to ask that it do its work for your highest good and the highest good of all concerned. In this way, our own personal preferences of the moment are not competing with whatever higher good may be planned for us.

Breathe deeply of Goodness and Light. Let it fill every cell of your body. Breathe it into any areas (mental, emotional or physical) in need of healing. Asking for Goodness and Light to surround, fill, protect and heal you, for your highest good and the highest good of all concerned, need not take long-a few seconds at most (as long as it took you to read this sentence).

Melba Colgrove 

Love is knowing all about someone, and wanting to be with them more than any other person. Love is trusting a person enough to tell them everything about yourself. Being in love is a glimpse of what one will perpetually enjoy in heaven. The truth is if you are in love, you will need little else in life, and if you are not, it is hard to make life worth living.

by Charly Mann

In these times of economic turmoil, it is good to remember that there is something you possess that is more valuable than money; time. After all, lost money can be replaced, but lost time is gone forever.  Time is also an asset that, if invested wisely, can get you almost anything you want.

Timing really is everything. You don’t have time to do everything, so how you set your priorities will determine how well you use time. Master your time and do not allow yourself to be scattered. Organize your life so it is well balanced. Only then will you achieve inner harmony. Savor your time by making the best choice of how to use it and then living fully in each moment.

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time.

Georgia O'Keeffe

How you spend your time is much more important than how you spend your money.

Charly Mann

There are two signs that you have attained enlightenment. The first is that you stop worrying and become light-hearted and full of joy. The second is that you have more and more meaningful coincidences in your life. These are called synchronicities. You will soon realize that these synchronicities are providing you with experiences and information that transforms who you are.

by Charly Mann

We have become a culture of blame. The news is filled with politicians blaming their opponents for causing the problems we encounter. Personal relationships and civility are breaking down at an alarming rate as we blame our family, spouse, friends and community for our problems. It is never our fault, but is always someone else’s. However one rarely hears people pointing out how their success and happiness are caused by someone else.

I think blame should be banned. We should instead focus on taking responsibility and look at blame as just a weak excuse for not wanting to change or fix a problem. The truth is you are never going to grow as a human until you accept that no one but yourself is responsible for fixing your problems.  We spend far more time and energy finding excuses for our predicaments than fixing them.

Why do we blame other people for our troubles?  Sometimes it is true that another person is responsible for what has harmed you.  However, more often than not you actually share the blame and just find the other person an easy target for venting your frustration. Relationships, family and community should focus on nurturing and supporting, even if someone has not been perfect. After all, love and understanding are basic tenants of our major religions and much of our culture. Accusations of blame only make a problem worse. Find a solution and make positive change to mend a relationship that is worth saving. It is hard work, and requires honest and often painful communication, but in the end you can save a friendship and grow as a person. If you have a relationship problem, just say, “we have a problem and I want to help fix it. I hope together we can find a solution that will make our lives better.”

Blame is fixing responsibility in the past, while finding solutions is putting responsibility in the present and future.  Think what a waste of your time blame is. You keep living in frustration and unhappiness, and at best you may get someone else to feel guilty about causing your problem.  Blame is a disease that you can cure by taking control of your life and responsibility for your future.

"One important purpose of life is to do more good than harm during your time on earth. Every action you take has consequences. Many of our noblest philosophies and religions have caused the deaths and suffering of millions of people. Our own good intentions can also do more damage than good. Only if we are responsible, honorable, and compassionate can we do things that matter for others, and leave the world a better place than if we had not lived."

Kathryn Mann

by Charly Mann

Just living is not enough. Decide what things are important to you and pursue them passionately. Without passion life is boring. Be serenely and joyously aware of the world around you. Continue to ask questions throughout your life, even if you cannot find all the answers. Friendship, conversation, and work should be among your greatest joys. Having children and raising a family is usually the most fulfilling and meaningful thing one can do with their life. If you want to change the world, the first place you should start is by seeing if you can change yourself. Then enjoy the world as you improve it. Feel the sunshine and always do the best you can. Our time in this world is very short.  Do things in it that you will remember fondly in the next.

by Charly Mann

Nobody wants to be lonely, yet 25% of Americans say they don’t even have a friend or family member to talk to about important issues. That is twice as many as there were 20 years ago. Today, almost 31 million Americans live alone, a 40 percent increase since 1980. In just the last 20 years the average American has 1/3 fewer people they feel close to. And those people are less likely to be friends, as the percentage of Americans who confide only in family members has increased from 57 percent to 80 percent since 1985.

This all coincides with the collapse of our sense of community. Everyone wants a place to call home that we feel a strong bond to, where we can have a circle of friends who will celebrate our joys and comfort our pain. We are social creatures who need people around us that we trust and care for in order to be emotionally healthy. But today we are not tied to our community; 1 in 6 Americans, more than 42 million of us, move every year. This means on average, you and the five families living nearest you will all move away within six years. The average American now moves more than eleven times in their lifetime.

We instinctively want to reach out and connect to people who share our interests and values, yet it is hard to make the effort to even meet our neighbors when we know most of them will soon move away. We instead become more socially isolated by watching more television, playing video games, and especially surfing the Internet. There are 1.5 billion people using the Internet on a regular basis. Where once we used our home encyclopedia, the library, local bookstore, or friend or family member to gain knowledge, we now do all of this by typing a few words on a video screen. We can send instant messages, use chat rooms, email, and join MySpace and Facebook, but what we need is a physical relationship where we are in someone’s company. We will never meet our emotional human needs through electronic communication.

For people to make real friends and cure our epidemic of loneliness we need to create stable communities. A community needs a soul and continuity to be a nurturing. A stable community gives us a since of history and belonging, as well as standards and mentors we can hold on to for most of our lives.

By Kathryn Mann

Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the butterfly, the small child and the kitten. To keep balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around you and within you. If you can do that you are truly wise.

By Charly Mann

You can get almost anything you want if you teach your mind to always have an enthusiastic attitude. Winston Churchill said “success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Enthusiasm is nothing more than a combination of keen interest and joyful excitement.

You can easily become an enthusiastic person. It is as simple as learning to act enthusiastic. Start by training yourself to brim with energy. Much of this energy comes from remembering to relax and have fun with whatever you are doing. Make a sincere effort to create positive energy by giving compliments to your friends and colleagues throughout the day. Also, try spending fifteen minutes every day being enthusiastic about something you really don't like doing. You will be surprised how much better you feel when you approach it with enthusiasm. By adding enthusiasm to your life, I guarantee you will enjoy almost everything you do.

Enthusiasm means not giving in to stress. You can actually change a bad situation by relaxing and reacting to it with enthusiasm. A smile is always the face of enthusiasm. You will discover that enthusiasm is contagious, and once you introduce it into your personality it is hard to destroy.

By Charly Mann

Our world and lives seem to be more affected by betrayal than love. Almost every relationship ends or is diminished because of betrayal. War, hate, and violence are usually precipitated by a betrayal of trust. Everyone has experienced the pain of betrayal.

Betrayal can be a long-term deception, as when someone is secretive and does not reveal the whole truth, or it can seem sudden and out of the blue, as when someone you totally trusted and thought cared about your well being does something so evil that you are blindsided. There is nothing so painful as betrayal by someone you love.

Is betrayal a governing principle of life? Is it simply a manipulative tool devised by man to acquire and get more from those who are weaker and more vulnerable? Might and betrayal are the pillars for creating great nations, winning wars, and acquiring great fortunes. We live in a world where many believe that “what is best for me trumps morality”.

Betrayal is a truly selfish action because it shows no concern for the other person’s feelings. Its sole purpose is to increase one's own happiness. One rationalizes betrayal internally through a conviction that one’s own well being is more important than someone else’s.

People who are prone to betray others have little regard for morality and live their lives very close to the edge. They rarely keep a job or a friend for very long. They make a habit of blaming others for most of the problems in their life. If they are caught in a deception, they blame someone else for their action or, more typically, revert to denial. They are incapable of admitting their faults not only to others, but also to themselves. They always end up being very unhappy people.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn! Look to this Day! For it is Life, the very Life of Life. In its brief course lie all the Verities and Realities of your Existence. The Bliss of Growth, The Glory of Action, The Splendor of Beauty; For Yesterday is but a Dream, And To-morrow is only a Vision; But To-day well lived makes Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope. Look well therefore to this Day! Such is the Salutation of the Dawn."

Kalidasa

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.

Dorothy Thompson

If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax; I'd limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after the other, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over again, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances; I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.

The authorship of this piece is uncertain. Some attribute it to a monk. Some to Ray Lucht, leader of the Commission on Aging in Iowa. Other possible authors include Robert Hastings, Don Herold, Nadine Stair, & Jenny Joseph. It has been translated into at least six languages, the Spanish version is by Jorge Luis Borges.

by Charly Mann

People want to be happy and connected to other human beings. Many think money and things are the key component to making this happen. The truth is we derive our greatest satisfaction from how we live our lives. The people who are the happiest consistently say that what gives them the most satisfaction are the things they enjoy doing, or their relationships with people. This includes being a good parent, enjoying what they do for a living, socializing, learning, spending time with a spouse, lover, or best friend, having a spiritual connection, reading, a leisure activity, or expressing themselves creatively. Surprisingly, material comfort is not a key ingredient to having a good life.

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."

Albert Schweitzer

"Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses."

Dale Carnegie

There is always something to be thankful about. Spend time writing down all the wonderful things in your life each day. This includes your friends, family, pets, favorite things you own, your health, music and/or entertainment you are enjoying, and the weather.

Don’t allow yourself to think much about your setbacks, or what you don’t have, but focus on accepting what you have, which is almost always better than many less fortunate people. Problems can be solved and difficult times will build your character, if you handle them with strength and not self-pity.

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change."

Buddha

"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony."

Thomas Merton

"One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”

Lewis Carroll

by Charly Mann

Anger damages relationships and ends opportunities. No other trait does more damage to oneself. Anger tells other people you are weak, irrational, and unbalanced. Anger can be eliminated from your personality the following techniques.

Tips for Preventing Anger from Getting Inside of You:

1. Develop of strong mental picture of yourself losing your temper and imagine the respect you lose from others, especially the person who has upset you.

2. Spend time each day meditating and reflecting in a peaceful setting like a warm bath, your backyard, or a quiet place in your house, where you can visualize yourself reacting in a calm manner to situations that tend to provoke an angry response.

3. Make a list of the first five incidents that come to your mind which made you angry in the past. You will probably discover that you can remember the outburst more clearly than what made you angry. You will also see that most, if not all, these incidents were triggered by trifling events.

4. Become focused on maintaining discipline in the way you act and react to other people. Calm and clear speech that is aimed at expressing yourself clearly will greatly reduce the chances of someone saying or doing something that might annoy you. Attentive listening and emotional self-control when someone else is talking to you almost always results in a dispute being resolved without anger. Keep in mind that any impulsive response you make to someone you are having difficulty communicating with is likely to exacerbate any conflict. Reacting in a calm and soothing tone makes it almost impossible for you produce an angry reaction.

5. Try humor to defuse what is upsetting you. This forces you to make fun of a negative situation. This technique works very well in situations that are not truly serious. Just be careful not to respond with sarcasm, which is just a subtle form of anger.

6. You should think of anger as an intruder in your body like a deadly cancer that should be immediately removed.

7. Don’t blame others for the difficulties you encounter in life. Either take responsibility for them yourself, or accept that bad things which are nobody’s fault can happen.

8. Accept that anger is probably a sign that you are stressed out and emotionally uptight. This means you need to slow down the pace of your life by relaxing and lowering your expectations. Just spending a minute several times a day taking slow, deep breathes will make you feel more relaxed.

9. Remember that anger conveys the message that you think things should go your way. That is “I am totally right and you are totally wrong.” This is a trait of a bully, not someone who is compassionate.

10. Take full responsibility for your emotional responses. Make sure you ingrain that there is never an excuse for getting angry in yourself.

11. If you feel a hint of anger emerging in your mind, immediately defuse it by mentally and/or physically taking a break from what is making you uncomfortable. During this time soothe your nerves and focus on a calm response to the situation.

12. Finally, accept that you will encounter real cruelty and injustice in your life, but you can deal with it effectively using calmness and logic.

"To know and love another human being is the root of all wisdom.”

Evelyn Waugh

"Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed.”

Carl Sandburg

by Charly Mann

Today children in the United States have very little free time to play with other children. Recess has been eliminated in most schools, and outside of the classroom parents have their children busy in organized activities supervised by adults. If a child has any time alone, he or she is most likely watching television or playing a video game.

The problem with this, according to Hara Estroff Marano in her book, A Nation of Wimps, is that playing with other children away from adults is where a child can best develop social, cognitive, and decision making abilities.

Parents' primary hobby today seems to be micromanaging their children. With the help of the cell phone, children now often talk to their parents four or more times a day when they are away from home. Marano believes many children are becoming overly dependent on their parents, and are rarely in situations where they have to manage their own time or think for themselves.

The ability to plan is a crucial part of our brain’s ability to regulate our feelings, thoughts, and learn problem-solving skills. Children who are raised to be independent and have time to themselves, as well as unsupervised time with other children, are the least likely to develop depression. Depression rates are increasing fastest among the youngest of our population. A recent study found that 15% of American college students suffer from depression. Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan says children who are closely managed and monitored by their parents are the most likely to be shy and bullied by their peers.

By the time these children get to college, they have been deprived of a normal childhood and lack the ability to comfortably interact with members of the opposite sex. Having never experienced childhood, they make up for this in college by hanging around in the kinds of groups that young children once did. When they interact with the opposite sex, they rely on binge or heavy drinking, because this interaction requires no social skills and it medicates their anxiety.

We now see an alarming number of young adults who have difficulty establishing themselves in the world because they are socially incompetent. Even when they begin their career they cluster into groups with the objective of fitting in and being accepted as they try to have an adolescence. They also have great difficulty forming close and intimate relationships, since they never had a time during which they could learn to comfortably be themselves.

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a Meadowlark. It is a songbird that is loved for its melodic singing. Meadowlarks make their nests much like a house, by shaping out an existing depression in the ground, then covering the floor with grass and making a waterproof roof that is made of woven grass and other plants. It takes twelve days for their eggs to hatch, and the female produces two sets of offspring each year.  The male protects the nest by chasing away animals that venture too close.

It is how you think that determines how you feel. Negative thoughts will indeed make you depressed, anxious, and angry. Learn to think in a positive manner. Mistakes can be looked at as lessons. Setbacks can give you strength and make you determined. Most of all most negative thought is illogical and distorted, and does not put facts in a rational perspective. Things are not black and white, and we too often take the bad part of a situation and make it more significant than it really is.

Charly Mann

by Charly Mann

The ability to focus and pay attention are vital to our ability to grow, learn, and truly enjoy life. Today, we live in a world full of so many distractions that it has become very difficult to ever be fully aware of anything for very long. We are connected wherever we go, with our cell phones, Blackberries, and iPods. At home, we have hundreds of television channels, and our television is almost always on. There are also video games, DVDs, and the ever present Internet and e-mails competing for our attention. We have learned to cope with our technological innovations by becoming adept multi-tasking creatures, often doing two or more things simultaneously. We rarely have time to pay full attention when talking to a child or spouse with all the competing distractions that surround us. We have 24-hour virtual worlds of every description including Facebook and MySpace. Our social life is filled with instant text messages from friends wanting to know what we are doing that moment, and our communication with friends is usually superficial.

Maggie Jackson in her new book, Distracted, says the average white-collar worker has to change what they are doing an average of every three minutes due to some interruption like an instant message, phone call, or a colleague coming by with a question, urgent task, or just to chat. She says experts believe "interruptions take up to 2.1 hours of an average worker's day, and cost the US economy $588 billion a year." The less a worker is able to stay focused, the more stressed he becomes. Jackson says we have become a culture that has information overload from all our sources of facts, yet our comprehension is based on skimming and not deep understanding. Thus we lack depth not only in our knowledge, but also in our relationships.

The antidote to our life of distractions and interruptions is to focus on giving full attention to what we are doing as often as possible. Studies have shown that one’s ability to focus and pay attention is twice as important as IQ in doing well at tasks or on tests.

"You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments that stand out, the moments where you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love."

Henry Drummond

We get stressed out for many reasons, but there are some simple methodologies for reducing your anxieties in life.

1. Try to eliminate anger you have toward others by learning how to forgive and compromise. Nobody is perfect and even if you are sure you are right it might be better just to overlook a grievance or find common ground with the person you are having a problem with.

2. Focus on the positive side of anything that is bothering you. Have you learned a lesson you will not repeat? Has the experience given you better insight into the world? Put things into perspective - how bad will you really feel about what is causing you stress at this moment a day, week, or year from now?

3. Set aside time to relax and decompress every day. Time spent walking in a beautiful setting, a long hot bath, or just listening to soft music in a dark room will greatly reduce your stress.

4. Give up caffeine - it is common in many of our drinks and foods, and is a leading cause of our stress and anxiousness. Chamomile tea – at least twice a day - hot or chilled - is a wonderful natural stress reliever.

5. Simplify your life. Much of our stress comes from trying to do too much. By doing less you will enjoy your life more.

The best happiness comes from appreciating nature. When we focus on the superficial and forget what really matters, we can never be at ease.

"One of the great realizations of life is accepting what your parents did to mess you up. The second is realizing how much their lives were probably screwed up by their parents. And the third is how much you truly love them."

Charly Mann

by Charly Mann

There is probably nothing more important to achieving happiness and fufillment than having balance in one’s life. Most of us feel overstretched in certain areas of our lives and are forced to forgo activities we would like to devote more time to.

The ideal life combines all of the activities we enjoy, along with our responsibilities, mixed in moderation to achieve a harmonious balance. The best way to do this is to be aware of the many things you want to do in life. You can gain this awareness by writing down your goals and then prioritizing them in order of importance.

Your personal needs should receive a high priority in your planning. This includes time to decompress, as well as time for play, family, personal growth, and work. Set time aside for each of these activities every day, and also designate one day a week for relaxation. You should have a daily, weekly, and yearly schedule.  These will give you control over your time, allowing you to achieve the balance you want in your life.

Nothing is more important than how we pace our lives. Letting something slide for too long means that when it is time to do this task we have little time for anything else, and are likely to become stressed by being out of balance.

We advise setting aside the last hour of every day for quiet time with yourself and your family. Reflect on what you have learned and accomplished that day, and create a mental picture of what you want to do tomorrow.

Some other tricks we recommend for achieving balance in your life:

1. Try to eliminate or greatly reduce the amount of time spent with people who cause you anxiety.

2. Watch as little TV as possible. It is really not useful for relaxation since it is passive. It only takes time away from more useful and enjoyable activities.

3. Make sure you communicate well with your friends, family, and co-workers. Nothing is more stressful and time wasting than trying to fix problems caused by poor communication.

4. Allocate time each day for intimate relationships with family and friends who you trust. There is nothing better for joy, growth, and emotional support than spending time with people you love.

by Charly Mann

As humans we have emotional needs that are just as important as our physical needs for food and shelter. Our emotional needs are best met by tight-knit communities in which people care about and support one another.

Since 1945, the rate of depression in the United States has increased more than ten fold. This coincides with the greatest rate of people moving from rural to urban communities. Today more than 75% of Americans live in urban areas. In California, for example, 98% of people live in metropolitan areas while in New York State the percentage is over 90%. Only in Vermont, Idaho, and Montana do less than 25% of the population live in urban areas.

In 1800, only 6% of Americans lived in cities, and even by 1860 80% still lived in small communities. Now in the United States more than 50% of the population resides in just 37 metropolitan areas. Cities have not provided humans with the basic emotional need of being part of a community. To cope with this lack of a support network, the urbanite has become more self-centered.

by Charly Mann

Being able to pursue happiness is one of the greatest joys in life. We can be happy as long as we have interests and goals and the opportunity and discipline to pursue them.

Is happiness a feeling, like sadness, that can only be had for a period of time? Many think happiness comes from pleasure, others from wealth, and others by virtue.

Pascal said "All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may employ, they all strive towards this goal. The reason why some go to war and some do not is the same desire in both, but interpreted in different ways. The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves."

Many think we attain happiness by pleasure, but Aristotle said this is just a temporary animal emotion desired by only the most simple-minded people. He believed a life focused on being virtuous and expanding one’s intelligence would make a person truly happy. He said as the only rational creature we should always strive to be really good at whatever we do. He said a happy person would always behave in a virtuous manner.

The average American takes 16 days of vacation a year, while the average French person takes 37, and the average German takes 35. However a recent survey shows 56% of Americans are very happy compared to 31% of Germans and 35% of the French.

Were you just born cheerful and happy? Is it some sensual pleasure like food or making love that makes you happy?  Or is it just the absence of sorrow and pain that gives you happiness?

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we have an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. So how should we pursue happiness and know when we’ve got it? To some people we should be happy is we live a life of virtue and goodness. Today it seems many of us feel we should pursue happiness by trying to feel good by what we own and the food and sometimes drugs (legal and illegal) we consume.

Dan Gilbert, a psychologist and Harvard professor, says we can actual create a synthetic happiness which is as good as any kind of happiness that we might imagine.

Gilbert is the author of Stumbling on Happiness, which presents his conclusion that we can actually choose to be happy when we don’t get what we want. This is contrary to the idea of natural happiness which is only achieved when we get what we want. He says we have the ability to alter our perception of what we experience into something positive even if it was not what we desired. This is what he calls synthetic happiness, and he demonstrates that it is just as real and satisfying as natural happiness.

Click the title above to watch his lecture. 

Many people have the ability to lie well. While they fool people with their deception, they also find it nearly impossible to have a truly close relationship with another person. People who are honest tend to have close friends. Those who live by deceit and manipulation are loners.

Hugging almost always induces happiness.

Financial serenity does provide peace of mind and can be easily attained if you live beneath your means and invest wisely.

Being with family and friends we care about is almost sure to make one happy. Go out for a meal with a neighbor; take your spouse on an adventure, or travel to see friends.

A happy person makes little distinction between his work and his play, his education and his recreation, his love and his beliefs. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in everything he does, leaving others to determine whether he is at work or at play. To him, he is always doing both.