| Happiness ... some thoughts
In my reading Gateway to Happiness by Zelig Pliskin, I would like to post about the subject of "happiness" and I will give a brief outline of what I would like to talk about.
1. Happiness is a skill that can be learned. To acquire this skill it is necessary to master the following:
A) The ability to focus on happiness-producing thoughts instead of those which cause unhappiness.
B) The ability to evaluate events and situations as positive instead of negative, or at least to lower the degree of negativity (rather than considering minor discomforts as tragedies, evaluate them as minor).
2. Facts themselves are neutral. You do not have emotional reactions to facts. Your emotional reaction is always based on your subjective evaluation of any situation.
A) When you evaluate something as negative, awful, tragic, or a misfortune, you will feel sad, depressed, miserable, angry, or full of anxiety.
B) When you think that something does not affect you in any way and are apathetic to it, you will feel neutral.
C) When you evaluate something as good for you, you will react with happiness or joy.
3. Whenever you react to an event or occurrence with a negative emotion (such as sadness, anger, or anxiety) divide the situation into three parts or stages:
A) The situation itself (without any evaluation).
B) Your attitude about the situation.
C) Your emotional reaction.
The situation itself (A above) does not cause your emotional reaction (C above). It is always your attitude about the situation (B above) that causes your emotional reaction. Change your attitude (B above) from negative to positive (which I will discuss latter in this thread) and your emotional reaction (C above) will change from negative to positive. Keep in mind that the positive attitude has to be realistic and acceptable to you personally. Whenever you can take action to improve a situation, take that action. Whenever you cannot change matters, adopt a positive attitude.
Liad Bar-EL |