Tag Archives: happy
Document
“Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself: what you’re wearing, who you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat.” ~Warsan Shire
Spreading Good Vibes
I just completely admire someone who goes to such lengths to get a smile. Their YouTube channel is located HERE.
Two Roads Diverge
“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem (link), they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road– the …
Say “Bless You”
Yoko Ono’s Cleaning Pieces CLEANING PIECE I Write down a sad memory. Put it in a box. Burn the box and sprinkle the ashes in the field. You may give some ashes to a friend who shared the sadness. CLEANING PIECE II Make a numbered list of sadness in your life. Pile up stones corresponding …
Don’t Do It
“It’s easy to focus on the negatives in your life and start complaining about what’s not good enough or what’s lacking. Don’t do it. Because it will steal your peace and you’ll never be satisfied with what you have, always wanting more. Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” ~Ismail ibn Musa Menk
Take Inventory
“Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Framing the Question
“When we start to feel anxious or depressed, instead of asking, ‘What do I need to get to be happy?’ The question becomes, ‘What am I doing to disturb the inner peace that I already have?’” ~D.T. Suzuki
Every Inhale, Every Exhale
A reminder from Yumi Sakugawa: Your life is not on pause or delayed. Your life is still happening, so then the question is: Are you fully awake to it, paying attention even if it is completely different from your idea of how it should be like in an ideal scenario? There are no ideal scenarios, …
Beware of Darkness
“Don’t let the darkness from your past block the light of joy in your present. What happened is done. Stop giving time to things which no longer exist, when there is so much joy to be found here and now.” ~Karen Salmansohn (I found it HERE, he found it THERE)
Vaguely Amused
In this excerpt from May This House Be Safe From Tigers, ©1959, Alexander King discusses the defining trait of his native Austria, and how that helped him through a health crisis: First of all, let me solemnly assure you that I have never in all my life met a single really näive Austrian. In a …
If this isn’t nice, what is?
Excerpted from my second-favorite Kurt Vonnegut book, TimeQuake, ©1997: “My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important. He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it. “He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: …
Life is beautiful, life is wonderous…
This’ll cheer you up. Full lyrics HERE.
Even Smiling More Than Usual
The most important aspect of karma relates to the state of our mind. At some point, whether we meditate or not, we learn that certain activities disturb the mind. When we apply awareness to cause and effect, we cultivate recognition of subtle shifts in mental behavior, and we become more sensitive to how an agitated …
Boxed
“Although we have limitless potential, we can end up feeling boxed in to a particular role in life or a particular understanding of who we are. How does this happen? We limit ourselves when we adopt specific identities, and then believe that this is truly who we are and must be.” ~The Karmapa Ogyen Trinley …
Free!
I wish I could join the digital-less revolution, but it’s not possible anymore. We’ve been forced to pay most of our bills online because the mail is so slow and unreliable we were being slammed with late fees. Now some companies are requiring payment online, removing entirely the option of paying with cash. It sucks. …
Self-Care
This essay by Brianna Wiest points out that escaping from a miserable life should not be a substitute for changing it, that self-indulgence and self-care are not synonymous: Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing. It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and …
Skip
“I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.” ~Leo Buscaglia Most Leo Buscaglia quotes have an ellipsis in the middle. His conversations tended to wander. 😀
Happy to Know Now
The anecdote below is from the article The Joys of Being Wrong About Yourself by Stephanie Georgopulos: In February I was introduced to a man, a successful man by any standard, a man called Rupert (and naturally by “introduced,” I mean I heard him talk about himself on Radiolab for three minutes). Rupert is your …
Enough
The poem below was written by Kurt Vonnegut to memorialize his friend Joseph Heller: JOE HELLER by Kurt Vonnegut (via) True story, Word of Honor: Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. I said, “Joe, how does it make you …
Ninth of Twelve
Everything about this video, from the way they dress to the way they dance, just radiates joy. Full lyrics HERE. Other songs about September include: Try to Remember by Ed Ames (YouTube Link) September Song by Jimmy Durante (YouTube Link) September Morn by Neil Diamond (YouTube Link) Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green …
Abbie's Tree House 