Fifteen Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy

Online World Observer recently printed a piece titled "Fifteen Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy."  It contains a lot of wisdom I've come to accept over the years, some of which I've been able to incorporate into my life and outlook and some of which I'll have to refer to as a work in progress.  The key point is that a lot of things we hang onto aren't necessarily very good for us, and by that I mean they don't truly serve to make us happy.  Often times they have precisely the opposite effect.  We have a limited time and but one go around at this life.  How will we spend it?

In bold, Here are the fifteen in the list. The comments in regular print are mine.

 1. Give up your need to always be right. 
Pick your battles.  I find it liberating to admit when I am wrong. 

2. Give up your need for control. 
 I find the only thing I can truly control is myself, and even that imperfectly. 

3. Give up on blame. 
 Blame is a self-defeating trap to excuse failure without learning from it.  It also burns bridges to cooperation by making enemies of those blamed.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk.
 "As a man thinketh, so is he."  I have no harsher critic than myself, and have to step back at times and give myself permission to be human.  Positive, affirmative thinking is extremely powerful and becomes self-fulfilling.

5. Give up your limiting beliefs.
This is closely related to number four, and just as debilitating.  

6. Give up complaining. 
 Honest appraisal is one thing; mindless negativism is something else.  I avoid complainers like the plague.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism.
 Gossips and constant criticizers are to society what cancer is to the body. 

 8. Give up your need to impress others.
"Virtue is its own reward."  I have to be happy with myself for what I am and do.  As number two tells us, I cannot control their thinking anyway.  I do need to be attentive to others' reactions to me, since they are valuable feedback on my own conduct, but having a need for their approval to feel right about myself leads to all manner of ultimately unacceptable compromises.

9. Give up your resistance to change.
The only state without change is the grave.  The only way I progress and improve is through change.  I have to remember to adapt to difficult change, embrace positive change and initiate needed change.



10. Give up labels. 
 Labels are artificial constructs, often intended to minimize, ridicule or demonize that which is different.  Herbert Spencer is quoted as saying the surest path to "everlasting ignorance...is  contempt prior to investigation."

11. Give up on your fears. 
Most are merely illusory.  Fear paralyzes necessary action.  That is what Franklin D. Roosevelt meant when he said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

12. Give up your excuses. 
This is the most destructive form of self-deception.  If I succumb to excuses I cannot overcome my challenges.  Instead, I wallow helplessly in misfortunes.


13. Give up the past. 
I need not forget the past, but I cannot live in it.  The present is all I have, and I must make the most of it. 


14. Give up attachment. 
It is not healthy to be obsessed with possessions.  True love is quite different from unhealthy attachment.  It is focused on selflessness and joy rather than compulsion and fear of loss. 

 
15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations.
 Similar to number 8, this principle is the key to genuine freedom.
 

Spread Some Happiness

The holiday season is upon us, and seldom has the injunction "peace on earth, good will toward men" received stronger scientific support. Indeed, the advice to "Be of good cheer" and spread "joy to the world" is validated by a study that reaches the conclusion, as its primary researcher puts it, that "Happiness is contagious."

You can go to the British Medical Journal's home page, BMJ, to learn more. You can see an abstract of its findings here.

The massive study by Harvard medical sociologist Nicholas Christakis and UC San Diego political scientist James Fowler followed 4,379 people for twenty years, from 1983 to 2003. That's an absolutely enormous sample. If you want to live in a happy community, smile and send out happiness to others. It has an effect to three degrees of separation, that is to the friends of friends of friends.

"A friend who lives within a mile and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25%." When one spouse is happy it increases the happiness of the other by 8% if they live together. For siblings who live within a mile it is 14%, and even affects their friends by 5%. Next door neighbors are affected by 34% if their neighbors are happy. Social networks and distance are important factors in the equation, which has major societal implications. Happy people are consistently measured to be more creative, productive and healthier.

"For a long time, we measured the health of a country by looking at its gross domestic product," said James Fowler, "But our work shows that whether a friend's friend is happy has more influence than a $5,000 raise." People's attitudes and behaviors clearly influence those around them. They found correlations in obesity and quitting smoking, for instance.

So, if you want to live in a happy environment, be the change you desire. Smile, be friendly, exude a positive and upbeat attitude and watch the atmosphere improve. Sometimes the old tried and true cliches are the best. This is certainly an example of it. I consciously follow this maxim in my own life. Try it yourself and you'll enjoy the results-and so will the community around you!