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.

Creating a Happiness Plan

by Jared Akers

This is a guest post by Rita in which she provides us with some simple and practical ways to cultivate happiness in our lives. Rita is an aspiring author, mentor and editor of Snubbr. Rita is currently writing a book on simple, practical ways to cultivate inner peace. Thanks Rita!

If there’s one common goal amongst the vast majority of us who are living on earth it is to be happy. Everyone wants to live their lives to their fullest, experiencing all their wishes and dreams coming true right before their eyes.

Unfortunately dreams don’t always come true in real life, but with a happiness plan, you can be sure that whatever does unfold before you, you are making the most of it and living each day to your best.

Often people will state that they are very unhappy, yet never do much in the way of assessing what they can do to change their status and find the true happiness they seek. They hope that their everyday actions will just eventually have them stumbling upon happiness, yet much of the time don’t even know what ‘happiness’ represents to them.

Creating your very own happiness plan is the best way to change this and get your life headed in the right direction.

Here is what you need to know.
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Love and Happiness

by Jared Akers

Can you have happiness without love?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this question lately. My opinion is; no you cannot find true lasting happiness without love. This does not mean “love” in the sense of an intimate relationship with a life partner or spouse. Granted, loving someone and being loved can and does bring tremendous joy, happiness, and purpose to our lives, but it is not a requirement for happiness. We only need to think about monks or people of highly enlightened states who have found happiness within themselves. In this context I’m talking about love for oneself.

For years I was unhappy. Sure I seemed happy on the outside and thought I was happy, but I always felt as if something was missing in my life. Any happiness I experienced was short lived. My happiness mostly came from professional accomplishments or material possessions; they weren’t keys to happiness rather but distractions. My answer to how to find happiness or “how to be happy” was anything that distracted me from knowing my true self. Intimate relationships never lasted very long either, usually because I felt as if I was giving up something; like personal freedom or the pursuit of my dreams. I know, it’s backwards thinking. At least a way of thinking that’s bound to leave me lonely. [Read more…]

Creating Your Happy Life: 3 Keys to Building Happiness

by Jared Akers

It is possible to build a happy life, but for most of us, it’s not easy. Maybe you know someone who seemed to manifest a happy life in an instant; I don’t.

I have heard of these miraculous awakenings into happiness, and I believe them to be true. One thing I have noticed, is that most of these cases seem to have something in common; a drastic change in perspective. Most often, through some type of near death or major life changing event.

But even in these cases, the individuals seem to only maintain this amazing sense of perspective for a short time. As they say, eventually life get’s in the way.

As many of us do not experience some type of amazing life changing experience, how do we go about creating a happy life? More precisely, how do we go about creating a new sense of perspective? Let’s examine the definition of perspective as it pertains to this article: the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one, etc.

Most of our ideas are based on past experiences, which lead us to anticipate what the outcome will be from similar, or not so similar events in the future. For example, maybe in a relationship we have been left abandoned or our spouse has been unfaithful, we are more likely to anticipate these same things happening in future relationships. [Read more…]

Feelings about Yourself Should Come From Yourself

by Jared Akers

Have you ever experienced the frustration when purchasing a Christmas present for a friend or family member you really do not know that well?

Now think about how well you really know yourself. Do you really know what you need to be happy?

We’ve all heard the saying, “You can’t buy happiness.” So why do we continually try and gain happiness and acceptance from external things or people? Because it’s easier than the alternative. Who wants to embark on the laborious journey of self-searching and examination? Especially if that means finding something we don’t like about ourselves, and God forbid we have to learn to accept it. Acceptance is crucial yet is one of the hardest parts of self-examination; once we accept something, we’re responsible. And if we’re responsible, we are the ones to blame for our unhappy life.

I don’t know about you, but for the majority of my life I had no idea what I needed to be happy. There was always this nagging feeling that someday I would figure it out. In the meantime, I figured if I just kept my nose to the grindstone and charged ahead I’d eventually find it. I guess in a sense, that day finally came; but it was a painful lesson in finding inner-peace and happiness. Experience is that way; a painful teacher.

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Finding Happiness

by Jared Akers

Finding happiness is somewhat of a paradox.

“The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase, if you pursue happiness you’ll never find it.”
-C. P. Snow

It would seem that finding happiness is somewhat like finding love, or the wind. We can feel it and even see it, but how do we actually go about finding it? Happiness is an emotion or state of being in that it is manifested within ourselves as a result of our experiences. Many times we may associate happiness with an external stimuli or interaction with someone or something. When in reality, happiness actually comes from within us as an emotional state of being. So how do we go about finding happiness within ourselves?

In order to have inner happiness, we must first be at peace with who we are and our place in the world. This peace comes with living up to the highest ideals we have for ourselves. Often, when we fall short of this ideal self, we experience unhappiness in the form of depression or low self-esteem. Therefore, getting to a place of self-acceptance is an important step to finding happiness.

Self-acceptance can be a hard journey to undertake. Especially with the fear of what we may find looming over our heads. However, if we’re serious about finding inner happiness we must travel this road and work at accepting ourselves as best we can. [Read more…]

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