Happy Is…

The time to be happy is now, the place to be happy is here, the way to be happy is to make others so.
—    Robert Ingersoll
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On This Day In:
2021	The Only Winning Move
	Says Who?
2020	I’m Guessing It’s Real
	For One More Day
2019	Like Smartphones And FOMO?
	Getting Ready For Halloween
2018	Nothing To Build On
2017	This One Is…
2016	Happy Is…
2015	Dare Yourself To
2014	Damned If You Do…
2013	On A Rainy Sunday
2012	Not Sure Anymore
2011	But What Does It Cost?
2009	Another Day, Another Diet…

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The Happiest People

Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays, good company, good conversation – what are they?  They are the happiest people in the world.
—    William Lyon Phelps
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On This Day In:
2021	An Impossible Situation
	I Fear It Is (For Us If Not The Planet)
2020	#45 Never Shuts Up
	Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love
2019	Silly Pooh Bear
	Dominoes Or Jenga?
2018	Very Few
2017	Or The Candidate Who…
2016	The Happiest People
2015	Jumping Into The Dark
2014	I Would Be Sillier
2013	It Keeps Happening Anyway
2012	Take Time
2011	A Mother’s Lesson
2010	3rd Pair – Shoe Review (DOA and Final)

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Be Happy!

The Character of a Happy Life
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;
This man is freed from servile bonds
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.
—    Sir Henry Wotton
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On This Day In:
2022	Prayers For Ukraine
2021	Be Your Own Hero
	Another Frog King
2020	Still Trying To…
2019	Press Freedom
2018	Or Loyalty To An Unqualified And Incompetent President
2017	A Bad Sale
2016	Be Happy!
2015	Are You Feeling Cold?
2014	Never Asked
2013	In Praise Of Change
2012	John Carter Of Mars
	Circular
2011	How Much And When

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Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow

If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we’re able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.  We need to be able to reverse this formula so we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of.  Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you’re positive, has two functions.  Not only does it make you happier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.
We’ve found there are ways that you can train your brain to be able to become more positive.  In just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in a row, we can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more successfully.  We’ve done these things in research now in every company that I’ve worked with, getting them to write down three new things that they’re grateful for for 21 days in a row, three new things each day.  And at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive first.
Journaling about one positive experience you’ve had over the past 24 hours allows your brain to relive it.  Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters.  We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we’ve been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand.  And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness.  We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their support network.
And by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we train our bodies, what we’ve found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success, and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity, but a real revolution.
—   Shawn Achor
From a TED Talk located at:
[Originally found at one of the blogs I follow called “Rethinking Life” and is located at:  http://gigisrantsandraves.wordpress.com/
The actual post is located at:   http://gigisrantsandraves.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/funny-and-great-talk-about-how-to-be-happya-ted-talk/
Well worth a visit to Gigi’s site, but caution, it can be addictive.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	Or Less Perceptive
2021	We Need Professional Journalists AND The First Amendment
	It Was Rainin’ Hard
2020	Neither Alone, Nor Lonely
	Giving
2019	That’s Why It’s Called Faith
2018	So We Agree, #45 Is Dumb – Too
2017	The Morality Of Spying
2016	He Doesn’t Remind Me Of Me
	The First Rule
2015	Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
	The Man Without Fear
2014	I Blame Robocop
2013	Future Trustees
2012	Praise Not The Day…
2011	Educated Living

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Switch To Dogs…

When my cats aren’t happy, I’m not happy.  Not because I care about their mood but because I know they’re just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.
—    Percy Bysshe Shelley
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On This Day In:
2013	Times Change
2012	Ashes Not Dust
2011	A Handful From Saudi
	None Of This Happened
	Take Responsibility

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Outside Dependence

No great amount of experience is required to discover that the greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness.  Why?  Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.
—    André Maurois
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On This Day In:
2022	I Love Flowers
	Hope And Fear: Global Warming / Climate Change
2021	I Should Have Started Earlier
	To Soothe Your Soul
2020	Let’s Make It So
2019	Today’s Question
2018	A Moment Of Union
2016	Symptoms
2016	Tossers
2015	Hunger
2014	Outside Dependence
2013	Doing Right
2012	A Short Course In Human Relations
	If Death Be My Future
	Strive
	Such A Fool
2011	I’m Working For A Living

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I’ve Never Have Had

Show me someone who thinks that money buys happiness, and I’ll show you someone who has never had a lot of money.
—    David Geffen
[Christ is risen!  (Christians) Happy Easter to all!  (Spring pagans)  God is Great!  (Monotheists)  And, let’s give peace a chance…  (Atheists, agnostics and everyone else 🙂 )    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2013	Glory Days (part 1)
2012	Feeling Old?
2011	Even When I Wish Really, Really Hard
	Skeptical Fathers
	Cha-cha-cha-changes

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Am Remembering

Happiness is not something you experience, it’s something you remember.
—    Oscar Levant
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On This Day In:
2021	Does Blogging Count?
	Another Notch
2020	Even Being President For Almost Four Years
	#45: Crying About The American Voters
	Dying Isn’t Much Of A Way To Make A Living Boy
2019	And Autumnal Foliage
2018	Up Hill, Both Ways
2017	Trump Carnivores – The Revolution So Far
2016	Election Results
2015	Speak Louder
2014	Why I Frequently Give In
2013	Am Remembering
2012	Sustained Fear
2011	Commitment

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Smile From Your Heart!

Do you need any more reason to smile or happy?
Take a walk, relax yourself…
Look at the nature.
Smile from your heart!
From one of the blogs I follow:  http://lijiun.wordpress.com
The specific post is at:  http://lijiun.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/fountain-of-joy/
[Sometimes we forget how glorious each day is…  And the beauty which surrounds us!    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	I’ll Keep Trying To Anyway
	She Knows
2020	Respond
	Still Trying To Adjust
2019	The Limits Of My Knowledge
2018	Even Tiny Progress
2017	Real Conservatism
2016	The Business Of Life
2015	Alone Again, Naturally
2014	Agreed
2013	Smile From Your Heart!
2012	Like You
2011	Got Days?
2010	K9 Humor – Has Anyone Seen My Setter?  (Must read!!)
	A Longer Blog Than You Want To Read (Probably)
2009	Back and Forth and Round Again…

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A Happiness Weapon

What I notice is that every adult or child I give a new set of Crayolas to goes a little funny.  The kids smile, get a glazed look on their faces, pour the crayons out, and just look at them for a while….  The adults always get the most wonderful kind of sheepish smile on their faces — a mixture of delight and nostalgia and silliness.  And they immediately start telling you about all their experiences with Crayolas.  …  Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon.  A happiness weapon.  A beauty bomb.  And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one.  It would explode high in the air – explode softly – and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air.  Floating down to earth – boxes of Crayolas.  And we wouldn’t go cheap, either – not little boxes of eight.  Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in.  With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest.  And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.
-–     Robert Fulghum
From his book:  “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten“
[I, too, loved my boxes of 64!    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2012	An Eagle Has Departed
	Ummm
	And In My Prayers
2011	Welcome Doubt
2010	Talk, Talk, Talk…
	Every Day At Least
	Democratic Suicide
	Pleasurable Reading
	Loose Joy
	Do, Er, Write – Whatever
	This Glorious Company
	Relax With A Good Book
	Neither Vice Nor Weakness
	That’s Rich!
	Man Will Prevail!!!
	Frankly Speaking to Arizona
	Brother By Another Mother

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Unhappy Alternatives

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.
—    Marilyn Monroe
[This quote was originally found on one of the blogs I follow, maintained by Deodatta Shenai-Khatkhate:  Deo Volente  at:  (http://dshenai.wordpress.com/)
The actual post is:  http://dshenai.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/interesting-quotes-by-marilyn-monroe/
Thanks, Deo!    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2012	Implications
2011	Never Let Us Down

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Are You Happy Yet?

Be happy for any person doing well.
—    Richard Pryor
[…Or your envy will eat you alive.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	It Doesn’t Rain Forever
	Thoughtful Stroll
2020	An Act Of Faith
	Born And Sold Fairy Tales
2019	Fostering Debate
2018	The Births Of Spring
2017	Drug Epidemic In America
2016	Word Up, Chuck!
2015	Sometimes I Wonder About Things
2014	Still Racing
2013	Anew
2012	Make Both
2011	Are You Happy Yet?

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