Happiness Articles

Learning how to find happiness can certainly be a lifelong journey. But that does not mean you'll never know how to be happy long-term. It's simply a process like anything else, with peaks and valleys. But the reward can be a more consistent ride and finding a flow with less extreme highs and lows.

How Perspective can Change Your Life: Shitty Circumstances and Self-Destruction

by Jared Akers

Circumstances can be shitty…

Or they can be exactly what you need. Here’s some insight into how perspective can change your life.

Tim was an amazing guy, we’d just met and as a fellow guitar player, we started playing together and it was magical. It’s like we’d played together our entire lives and had so many things in common; both musically and personally.

Then cancer took him way too young.

What is “too young?” Doesn’t losing someone stink regardless of how old they are?

Self-Destruction

It was 2005 and that’s when I self-destructed. My perspective was everything good in life comes to an end so what’s the point? I shut out life and everyone in it and sunk into depression and was hell-bent on destroying myself. [Read more…]

Hope is Cheap: How it’s Robbing You of Something Amazing

by Jared Akers

Hope is cheap, it doesn’t cost you a thing.

It’s something you cling to when you’re afraid of moving outside your comfort zone.

I know. I lived on hope for years. Consequently, nothing really amazing ever happened in my life.

Well, nothing good amazing.

Before you get all hope is all we have on me, think about this…

Are you hoping for a better job?
Are you hoping to be rich?
Are you hoping to find a perfect life partner?
Are you hoping someone doesn’t discover the real you?

[Read more…]

Giving Up On Life, Why Suicide Can Be Attractive and Some Things to Think About

by Jared Akers

Giving up on life, or suicide, is always an option.

Gasp…

I certainly know what hopelessness feels like.

But there’s a difference between being hopeless and helpless.

If you’re feeling hopeless, that’s OK, it’s natural and something many people go through. But you’re not helpless.

Regardless of your circumstances you always have the option to ask for help, no matter what you’re going through. It’s narcissistic to think no one understands.

Some common reasons people avoid asking for help:

We’re not aware we need it
Fear; we see asking for help as a sign of weakness or we’re embarrassed to admit we need help
Subconsciously we deserve to be miserable
We’re not desperate enough

[Read more…]

Attitude Is Everything: Chang Your Brain, Change Your Attitude

by Jared Akers

Are you a pessimist or optimist?

If you’re a pessimist, there’s hope. Thanks to neuroplasticity you can change the physical makeup of your brain by the way you think.

Most of life is about perspective and attitude. Things you have control over.

Transcription of the Video:

I have a medallion in my pocket that says attitude is everything. I’ve had this in my pocket, carrying it around for 17 years.

I got it in 1995, when I started in a restaurant they hired me as a manager. I got this then and I’ve been carrying it around ever since.

But it got me to thinking that some people are just not born optimist, they’re born naturally pessimistic about everything.

You know, “the world’s out to get them” and their circumstances or why they’re not happy so on and so forth etc but one of the things that I’ve seen is I know that people can change, and one of the very exciting things that I’ve learned about recently is is the science called neuroplasticity.

And that basically means that the physical makeup of your brain can change based on what you think, which is amazing. I mean that something physical can change its shape or it’s makeup basically from thoughts from energy and things that I think, which is amazing.

Now we’ve all known that the power of positive thinking is huge and is very popular and that it works.

But I know a lot of people, myself included, at certain times, certain points in my life, I couldn’t just sit around and think things and intuitively know how to make things happen.

Or just by thinking stuff my life didn’t just automatically get better. I had to take actions.

And it’s like Francine Ward one of her great sayings is you get a self-esteem from doing esteemable acts, and it’s one of my favorite things because it’s so true.

You know the important thing being action. You know, taking action and doing something. So you know if you’re having trouble having a positive attitude and you know that attitude is everything, if you had a crappy attitude then everything you see is going to be crappy.

Everyone’s going to be out to get you.

So anyway, if you’re filling down or you don’t have a very good attitude, think about it. And work on it, because attitude is everything.

And be honest, be loved, and be happy.

Want Happiness? Get off Your A#$!

by Jared Akers

The first major shift in my thinking happened in 1997. The realization that I was responsible for my own failure’s in life. That I wasn’t entitled to anything and that if I want success and happiness, I had to get off my ass and go get it!

Although I would reach another bottom in 2006, I realized that I hadn’t put in the necessary work to obtain sustained happiness. Previously all I had done was change some things on the surface and neglected to really dig deep and work on myself. This time, I was desperate enough to really dig deep and work hard on myself.

That’s when the real change and path towards sustained happiness and inner-peace happened.

It’s natural human tendency to want the greatest reward for the least amount of work.

Are you willing to put in the work?