Authentic happiness is true and unconditional happiness.  When someone associates the word authentic to any other word, it is merely describing the integrity and the strength of the other word.  When we say authentic leather, for example, we will easily picture in our minds some excellent and a top of the line quality leather.  This is easy to judge if it is true or not just by one look and some simple inspection.  From this we could easily know of the real quality of the leather.  When we say “authentic happiness”, is there a way to know?  Can we inspect the person physically who is claiming to have authentic happiness?  Only the person feeling that state of being “happy” can really attest to his or her true feelings and oftentimes they may even lie to themselves.

The authenticity of one’s happiness depends largely on the stability of that happiness and its strength to endure.  If you ask a toddler if he’s happy, generally, they will say ‘yes’ but you will find them in tears only a few minutes later when they don’t receive their candy. When you ask a student, a worker, a parent or a spouse, they may reply a big ‘No’ simply because they are now facing a new reality of life and are taking some time to become accustomed to their situation.  We encounter situations everyday which may not be exactly what we like but some people seem to be capable of magically brushing their problems aside and getting back to work. Other become entrenched in negativity and simply don’t have the energy to become successful. We are acquainted with people whom may not be of our same frequency, and we may commit mistakes upon which we do not know how to correct.

How can a person be happy, authentically speaking, when he or she has problems? The critical factor lies in the way you view problems as they appear. Available inspirational books, guides to personality development, articles on how to deal with emotional stress and many other self-help reading materials may be great help in enforcing a happier life.  Most of the time, however, we find ourselves largely dependant upon our own inner strength to get us through life’s trials and tribulations.

Aside from the very rare life changing events which take place in the event of a tragedy or a near-death experience, authentic happiness doesn’t seem to come very easily.  It requires an inner commitment to the task and an ongoing devotion to find something deeper our of life. By searching inside ourselves and putting ourselves to extra challenges each day, we eventually are forced to look deeper inside ourselves and to uncover the source of true happiness. It is very easy to be “happy” for a day or a few hours but being in a state of having “authentic happiness” means an ongoing sense of bliss which is only achieved by a select few individuals.  It is something that doesn’t come from mere material things but is an “inner peace” that endures beyond the superficial circumstances of the world.

How in the world can we achieve this inner peace?  According to the book entitled “The Art of Happiness”, which talks about the insights of the Dalai Lama, happiness is the purpose of life and the motion of life is always moving towards happiness.  The many meditations, conversations, and stories written in this book boil down into only single thing. Inner peace is the key to authentic happiness and you have to begin by accepting your humanity and the fact that you are not perfect. Then we learn to face our sufferings and turn them into something more meaningful.  We try to look at them more purposefully and appreciate the small things in life. We must try to always be optimistic as this is one of the significant keys to having a happy life.  Learning to watch our negative emotions such as anger, fear and insecurity will eventually lead us out of these emotions and into a peace within our inner selves.

When we say we are happy, we can be talking spiritually, emotionally or physically. When you feel you are content, have peace of mind and are worry-free, then you are spiritually happy.  When you are excited and feeling a though things are finally going the way you had hoped they would go, we say you are emotionally happy. If you are comfortable with your body or with the way you look, then that is what we refer to as physical happiness.  Which among these three types of happiness would you like to achieve? Many scholars describe these three forms of happiness as layers with the spiritual being at the top, followed by the emotional and the physical layers.  Each holds a sort of government over the others below it but any of them can ultimately disrupt the ones above or below it depending on the seriousness of the problems that may manifest in either area.

In Zen and the Art of Happiness, it is said that during Zen meditation or zazen, we experience the ultimate acceptance and perfect harmony of all three of these layers.  In our daily life, this experience may translate to our relationships so that we find ourselves naturally providing space for others to let them express themselves freely.  This attitude that we possess will lead to a powerful relationship with those people which can then lead us to achieving a much easier success.  The story does not end there however.  People who achieve this success through meditation will often find themselves still not content and happy with their state of being.  For Zen, real happiness comes from being detached from all the material needs and the emotional pushing and pulling of life.  It means a higher state of existence which transcends and yet incorporates all other states of being

Other reading material such as “The Art of Happiness, A Handbook for Living” has defined happiness as something which comes from our inner selves.  According to its author, Howard C. Cutler, M.D., the Dalai Lama, a holy man from Tibet, sees happiness as the purpose of every man’s existence.  We live to be happy.  There may be times in our lives when we feel hopeless and seem to be in the dark.  However, thinking that it is the nature of life, to constantly be put to a test and to calmly accept our surroundings, gives us renewed hope and light each time we embrace it.  This is the core of our existence and we need to see light from the darkest pits of our own soul. The Dalai Lama said that our belief in finding something even without evidence will give us a better chance of finding it.  The key only lies among us, by overcoming these negative emotions.

It is unfortunate, however, to find that the truth about human beings is that there are many people in our society whose sources of happiness depend only on the long desired material things which satisfy them.  According to psychologists, people with these tendencies are often children who have not experienced the joy of their own childhood, playing with the toys and experiencing a general well being while they were sill young. For these people, a special challenge may have been placed in front of them to overcome which is part of their developing karma.  It is up to them to accept this fate as part of a larger plan which provides them the optimum opportunity to overcome their karma and enter into a greater level of being. In other words, the level of their maturity may have stopped in those childhood days but innocence, carefree minds, perseverance, open-mindedness and respectful are all qualities of being childlike which can always be recovered. These people may have benefited from the fact that they also don’t act childish in other less useful ways such as the way that a child may act out their negative qualities such as being stubborn, self-centeredness and immaturity. Understanding spiritual qualities means not confusing these two sides of the child.

Happiness is everywhere.  We can find it in our homes, our workplace, the people we meet and the words other people say.  If we choose to see the good in things, others will someday look at us in a way where they could say, “That person makes me happy!” Giving happiness to oneself and to others may be the one way of creating our own happiness on all levels and in all forms of our being.

Are you 100% happy all the time?  Of course you aren’t!  That would be impossible, right?  Actually, it’s not impossible but it certainly isn’t normal.  Most people find themselves upset quite often and many people are downright depressed most of the time.  If you aren’t depressed, you at least feel a lot of worry and anxiety a lot of the time and probably get angry about things quite regularly.  What many people are surprised to hear and probably don’t believe is that there are some people who are happy almost 100% of the time and it isn’t an accident that they feel that way.  There is actually a way to happiness that can be found by virtually everyone but it requires an intense desire and a concerted effort to make yourself feel that way each and every day.  It isn’t impossible and it isn’t such a bad idea to think about trying it for yourself!

The journey of life is unpredictable and we don’t always know what’s waiting for us at the end of it all.  Still, since we travel this life only once, why not make the most out of it? Why not make life a little happier than we thought it could be?  Don’t we have the ability to do that? For many people, this problem seems bigger than it has to be.  Being happy doesn’t require worldly extravagance or material things.  Just finding the time to sit still each day and close your eyes can eventually become the greatest source of happiness you ever imagined. You can be the richest person on earth but still have trouble finding happiness. Being satisfied with whatever you have is really the key to finding that happiness and this can start when you sit still each day and close your eyes.

Just watch as the rush of emotions and thoughts flood your mind and you try to just be content sitting there. Right now, in this moment, you have everything you need and yet your mind will always want to race from this worry to that and from this problem to that.  The way to happiness is to practice that sitting still and to eventually watch as your thoughts start to slow down and your emotions start to iron out. Happiness must start from within and through an appreciation of the person that you already are. It’s not the way we look or even if others love us or criticize us. It doesn’t have to bother you that something isn’t done or that something needs to be another way.  Learn to be ok with exactly how things are at each and every moment no matter what!  That is something that comes from within and that is the way to true happiness. What’s inside of you is what matters the most. The more important thing in life is that you live with a clean heart that trusts and believes in the supremacy of happiness to rule over your life. Follow that and you will find the way to happiness. You will be surprised to find that even you can be happy 100% of the time!

A good way to begin is to start learning to be happy with the little details in your life.  Catch yourself when you get angry and watch how your mind works like a programmed machine.  How long did it take before you forgot that everything was ok just the way it is?  You’ll need to practice each and every day but this is really the only way to do it.  Eventually, you’ll end up realizing that you are beginning to count many more good things in life. That will surely make your journey easier and more worthwhile and it will make you a better person to be around. Happiness is our choice and it’s what’s in our hearts that counts the most. A happy person can withstand even the toughest, most grueling and tiring road of life. It just takes the decision to believe in your own inner power and you can find your way there yourself.  You’ll be one of those few people who is happy 100% of the time.

Many inspirational books and personality development materials are available in different bookstores to encourage each individual to take the first step towards spiritual enlightenment, development and growth.  It is true that finding peace within yourself can open a path in your heart and soul to give way to ultimate joy and happiness.  The steps in achieving this are tackled in many books and discussed chapter by chapter so as to ensure the reader a successful attempt in spiritual renewal.  Many people have taken these steps to be transformed by retreating into spiritual lives and turning their lives 360 degrees around from the bad influences to the more inspiring and motivating ones.

Finding true happiness is essential, not only for our own personal development, but for our relationship with others.  This is one of our ethical responsibilities as human beings because, as the highest form of creature on earth, we are capable of thinking and finding solutions to our problems.  We are intelligent enough to develop the latest technologies and we have the abilities to comprehend the smallest details of the most complicated things on our planet.  How much more capable must we be to find our own inner happiness!  With this as the case, we should certainly be responsible with our actions and our relationships with other people to find true happiness and a better life.  As a matter of fact, surveys have shown that unhappy people tend to be more self-centered, socially withdrawn, angry, antagonistic and pessimistic while happy people tend to be the exact opposite. In addition, happy people tend to be very approachable and are always ready to help someone when they can.

Although finding about spiritual fulfillment is that it makes a person happier in general. There are many things in life that are taken for granted when your attitude is not right but, when they are viewed in the correct way, they can make us very happy.  During the era of Greek civilization, computers, transportation and other hi-tech machinery were not yet available.  The people during those days were living a simple life yet they were still quite happy.   Everything we have now is part of a more developed world but it is often a world full of criticism, deadly competition and the “outwitting” of one another as an important tactic to gain more wealth and success. Does this bring true happiness?  Obviously the answer is “No”.  We are often forgetting the essence of living and a good life which is centered in spiritual values. Our necessities are really all in our minds and the truth is that we can live our lives even without a simple luxury or modern technology if we have to.

Many other people believe that their way of finding true happiness is simply by finding true love.  Being romantically attached and intimate with the opposite sex gives us a feeling of satisfaction because, deep within our hearts, we feel that a space can be filled up by somebody who is very dear to us.  Human beings are emotional and sentimental but studies have shown that oftentimes people lose that initial “spark” that they feel for someone else and a deeper commitment is needed to find the true source of love within themselves. People who are romantically in love do tend to be generally nice, approachable, carefree, responsible and have a peace of mind but this also tends to come from a deeper source inside themselves that is only projected outward onto the romantic relationship that they were blessed enough to find.  What about you?  Have you found your true happiness?  Think about it and try to find a way to find it inside of yourself.  If you do, you will surely project it out onto the world and find yourself acting as the very creator of the happiness you had sought for so long.

Finding a meaning in pain, suffering or anger is a difficult task. Often we feel these emotions because something did not go the way we thought it was supposed to go.  Once you learn to uncover a way of finding meaning in the things that don’t seem right, you are on the way to learning the art of happiness.

What is happiness?  When do we say we feel happy? From a book entitled The Art of Happiness, the author talks about the insights of the Dalai Lama, who is the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet.  The Dalai Llama is a popular speaker and a Nobel prize winner who has found a way to both experience continual happiness and to spread the true meaning of happiness to others so they can learn this practice as well.  He teaches that happiness is the ultimate purpose of life and that the motion of life is always moving towards happiness.  Some people place numerous obstacles in front of themselves as “condition” for happiness and thereby prevent themselves from experiencing this purely inner emotion of which they are the only true source.  Others, like the Dalai Llama have learned how to access this energy in a constant way so that there are no conditions whatsoever for experiencing happiness.  The book serves as an inspiration to many people through the stories, meditations and conversations it presents. It shows us how to defeat anxiety, anger, insecurity and hopelessness and to find inner peace instead.

Many of us live a very fast-paced lifestyle.  We want instant results for our efforts and we expect instant success or we get bored. We want visual evidence, data and we throw up shallow excuses for why we refuse to pursue our own inner source of happiness. “It’s too hard” we say, or “I don’t have the time.” We tend to see the cover, not the content of things. We hear the loud voice but not the heartbeat. We look at the clouds and not the sky.  We see only want we want and refuse to look deeper inside ourselves.

In human experience, many people have said that life is like a wheel.  You may now be experiencing your lowest point but later on, you’ll get to the top.  There a way to turn this wheel on its side however and see it from another angle. You don’t have to go spinning around and around forever. You can make all sides of the wheel face to the top all the time but this accomplishment depends on you.  If you want it, then you will find a way to do it.

From the same book, people are taught that the sole source of happiness is from the spiritual state of a person.  Eliminating unnecessary material things and living a very simple life with a decent job makes a person focus more on his or her spirituality.  From there, you will learn the purpose of life through human compassion and you will learn how to face suffering and transform it into something more meaningful.  You will learn to overcome the obstacles in life such as dealing with and avoiding hatred, anger and grief.  You will build self-esteem and above all, you will learn the basic spiritual values of life.  These values will awaken your senses to the holy truth that constant happiness is the real purpose of life.

Happiness, even if it can be found in a secret place within the dark and long tunnel of your inner self, is something that exists in all of our spirits.  It does not have to be experienced visually or through any of the senses.  Still, it will be experienced on the spiritual level like the way that the sun pierces through the clouds that hinder our vision of the true universe.  Bad emotions must be dealt with first to see the true meaning of happiness that lies behind them.  When you do this, you will understand the true essence and the art of happiness.

Sometimes, no matter how hard we may try, we find that getting and keeping a positive attitude and outlook is basically impossible. Some may start to wonder if they just are not capable of having a positive attitude, but that isn’t the problem. Everyone is capable of having a positive outlook. If you are having trouble in this area, you need to take a hard look at your life, and determine exactly what is preventing you from creating a positive attitude - changes will need to be made.

First, take a look at the people in your life. Just as the people around us are affected by our attitudes, we are affected by theirs. Have you tried to be positive, only to be shot back down into negativity by a co-worker, friend, spouse, or family member? If so, you have some hard decisions to make. You may need to cut those negative people out of your life.

Before cutting them out of your life, however, approach them with the problem. Explain that you are trying to be positive, and tell them how they are preventing it. See if you can get them to stop being so negative around you. If you can’t, make your hard decision. You should note that you don’t have the ability to control anyone other than yourself, and you may not be able to get your loved one’s to stop being negative around you.

Next, take a look at what you do everyday. The majority of us spend most of our days at our jobs. Is there something at your job that is preventing you from having a positive attitude? Is it the work? The customers? The boss? Can changes be made that will remove the obstacles? If not, you may need to consider a new job or a new line of work.

Is something that you are doing preventing you from having a positive attitude? Addictions such as alcoholism, drug addictions, food addictions, or eating disorders can prevent a positive attitude from happening. The only solution is to seek help for your addiction. Nobody can force you to get help. You will need to make up your mind to seek help for your addictions on your own. Once you’ve made the decision to seek help, there will be numerous people - with positive attitudes - ready to help you.

Often, making the changes necessary to create a positive attitude are hard decisions. You have to decide what is more important to you, and which direction will give you the most benefits. The decisions may be hard to make now, but the end results will be well worth the sacrifice.

The history of happiness didn’t begin just a few years ago.  It wasn’t even a couple of thousand years ago that it began.  No one knows the exact time that happiness was first experienced but it is often estimated that happiness began several thousand years ago because of the earliest writings that have been handed down through history. As early as 5,000 BC there are sacred texts known as the Vedas which were written by great sages and which explain the way to find true happiness in life.  The Vedas have been the source of the Hindu religion for thousands of years and were even studied by the Buddha himself. What is certain is that happiness has come along with the existence of life itself and only the Supreme Being knows for sure when it all began.

Although nothing is for sure concerning happiness and the history of its origins, we know that there is a sense of happiness that differentiates itself from the material happiness that many people seek out in modern times. Spiritual happiness is something that still lies deep within us and necessarily depends on the perception of the individual who decides whether they want to pursue this or not.  Different people can become happy in different ways and there are many spiritual traditions from the Greek to the modern day Islamic traditions which all help people to find the happiness that they are searching for in life.

The history of happiness may vary according to different people but one thing seems to be true, people learn by experience and through mistakes.  In many cases, older people actually tend to be happier than younger people because of the fact that they have experienced life already and have learned from their mistakes.  They have tried a variety of approaches in life and learned to be successful according to what they do.  They have failed at times, yes, but they also learned to stand up and face the world again. This historical experience, for them, has contributed to their ability to be happy and to find the real source of happiness which is actually coming from inside themselves. They may have committed mistakes but they are still here, loving and being loved by the others around them.

A story about happiness may help to illustrate the way history plays such an important role in how we learn to be happier in our lives. There was once a young boy and an apple tree who were friends.  The boy would always swing from the branches of the tree, climb all over it, eat the apples and sleet under the tree.   These were such happy days but, when the boy got older, he spent less time with the tree and the man only became interested in money.  The tree said, “Take my apples and sell them, these will give you lots of money.”  The man did so and the tree was happy.  The tree did not see the man for a long time after that.  The man grew older, tired of the world and wanted to get away from it.  When the tree saw the old man, it said, “Cut a large trunk out of me and make a boat, it will send you off to different places.”  The man did so and the tree was happy.  The tree waited again until the time the man, its true friend, would return.  Finally, the old man returned but he was too old to play and too tired to pursue any more wealth.  The tree said, “Why don’t you just sit down and rest in my shade?”  The man did so and the tree was happy.

The story can be understood such that we see ourselves growing older and recognizing that there are trees in our lives which give and are willing to give more and more even if it means releasing a part of themselves to us.  Just how many trees in our lives would help us achieve our individual goals and reach our satisfaction in life depends upon us and what we really need to be happy.  How many times in life do we take simple things like “shade” for granted? This reflection may help us realize that it may not be the trees in our lives that bring us happiness but the way we relate to them and take advantage of their gifts. It may be that we need very little in life but it takes us an entire lifetime to realize this simple fact.  This may be what history is also showing us and something that, hopefully, many people will recognize sooner rather than later.

Have you ever heard of someone that was “so in love” but wasn’t actually very happy?  It is possible for this to happen because actually, what we sometimes refer to as “love” isn’t really love at all.  Some people claim to “love” another person and sacrifice “everything” but later they find out that they weren’t really happy because they weren’t really considering their own needs in the first place.  Before we can love someone and spread our happiness to them, we have to be happy ourselves.

Most of the time, love is associated with happiness but, when you start losing that love, you also start losing your happiness and you may find that you never really had those things to begin with. This kind of “love” and “happiness” is not really love and happiness at all.  Unfortunately, these misconceptions are a lot more common than many people like to admit.  Falling in and out of love happens all the time and nobody is ever really sure what makes things fall apart.

You’ve probably seen it before.  In the beginning, two people walk hand in hand and seem to go together like night and day, coffee and cream, husband and wife. Over time, however, there are problems and they begin to feel bad, to argue and lose hope. Life is not without it’s problems even when you are in love.  Maintaining that love and that happiness is something that very few people are capable of because, actually, it comes from somewhere even deeper inside a person than they are truly aware of.

The thing that ultimately maintains our love and happiness in life is the energy that we get from inside ourselves.  Deep inside us is a wellspring of energy that is very strong in some people but very weak in others.  Without that wellspring of energy, you may find it hard to continue on in the face of many problems and challenges in your life.  You may get discouraged or hurt very easily and find that you no longer feel the same way about your loved one that you initially felt.  Your first impulses of love may fade and your happiness may begin to wane.

A lot of things can aggravate the negative feelings that we have inside ourselves and we may think that the person we love is “no longer the same” or “doesn’t care about us anymore”.  You may begin to feel that everything is hopeless and fail to see any light at the end of the tunnel. Something has gone wrong and you don’t know what it is.  The problem that has befallen you is that you never found that wellspring inside of yourself but wrongly imagined it to be coming from someone else. You were happy for a while but you didn’t really know why.  Those feelings of love and happiness weren’t coming from the other person!  You thought they were but, actually, they were coming from inside of you!  It’s true!  They were coming from inside of you!  Once that person begins to appear commonplace and boring, the feeling you had begins to fade.  You no longer feel the great feelings of love that were actually coming from inside of you to start with. You decided to turn them off. Instead, you covered them up again and all you felt was a sense of darkness.

Life is always a problem but that’s what makes you normal. Eventually, people come to recognize that all of their feelings actually come from inside of themselves and we are only coaxed into believing that one person or another person can make us happy.  Just like the times we go to see a movie and find ourselves laughing or crying, it isn’t that the people on the screen are real but that we have simply decided to believe in them for the time being while we are in the theater.  We watch and we begin to experience emotions from inside ourselves, thinking that the characters on the screen are real.  When we leave, we realize it was “just a movie” and we were only fooled for a short time into feeling a lot of interesting emotions?  Aren’t we some very simple creatures!  Who’s really in charge here?

Real happiness comes from a heart that is so filled with genuine love that nothing on the outside can really affect it in any lasting way. There are rare people who have practiced many techniques and teachings and learned to overcome their fears and their negative emotions to find a wellspring of energy inside them which is the real place that love and happiness come from.  If you are feeling discouraged or in need of an answer, look inside yourself for that wellspring and learn to face your fears and your challenges each day so that, over time, you will overcome the many problems that face you each and that face each and every one of us in life.  Life is a long road with many challenges and the winners learn to lift up their heads and go on even in the hardest of times.  Love and happiness are what make this world worthwhile, so let’s keep our head up and learn to be the person in charge of our own destiny.  We are truly the one’s who are in charge and we can make it an award winning movie that everyone will pay to see!

What does it really take to be happy?   The secret is easy.  Finding happiness just means knowing that it is completely up to you!  This may seem too hard to swallow or something like an impossible task.  The fact is, many people don’t realize that they have decided upon many things in life that aren’t making them happy and they refuse to let go of those things and pursue true happiness for themselves.

Oftentimes we are left with questioning ourselves about whether or not we are truly happy with our lives. We keep on thinking about the things that we have missed or that we don’t have.  We think about the things that we wanted to have and the problems that we now face almost everyday. When faced with negative thoughts and emotions like these, the first place we need to start is inside ourselves.

In order to see the reality of this secret, we need to learn to sit still and let our thoughts slow down.  We need to become experts at watching our mind and our emotions rather than acting on all the negativity inside ourselves.  Sitting still with eyes closed each day can be a great place to start to slow down our mind and our emotions and to allow the more positive energy inside us rise to the surface.

Oftentimes, we may feel burdened by the many atrocities we have to live with. From our work and our home to our friends and neighbors, we may see a lot of negativity that has even found its way inside ourselves. This discontentment leads us to ask, “Why would such a thing happen if there were truly a plan behind everything?”  One thing we may find comfort in is the fact that other people could never get any help from us if we hadn’t already experienced the bad things that have happened to us.  How will we ever be able to sympathize with another if we hadn’t seen some troubled times ourselves. In order to bring us all together, it may be necessary that we experience some of the bad things in life first so that we can then rise up and overcome these problems and help someone else in the future.

It’s important for us to realize that we can’t help anyone until we learn to help ourselves.  Oftentimes we fail to recognize how lucky we truly are. We need to slow down to appreciate this and quiet time each day may be just the place to start. It takes a lot of discipline to sit still each day and close your eyes.  Many days you might feel too busy or uncomfortable when you sit still. Again, this is because we are often not aware of the many beautiful wonderful things around us and within us. Our minds and hearts have become clouded with the negative.  We neglect to appreciate the good and forget to be thankful for the blessings we have.

The mere fact that we are alive and breathing is an amazing miracle. There can never be anything greater than the blessing of Life.  It’s a splendid gift that we must enjoy and be grateful for. Sitting still each day can help us to learn this. A lot of us tend to complain about our physical defects and fail to see that others less attractive than us have figured out how to be happy without these! Happiness is not an external  phenomenon but something that must come from within your state of mind. You have all the reasons in the world to be happy but you aren’t able to see it from within. The secret is to recognize the inner power and to pursue it each day when you sit still and watch your thoughts and emotions.

Having a nice career, finding a loving partner and maybe even raising children can all be more than enough to make a person happy. Those things all come, however, from first finding happiness within yourself and learning to spread it to others around you.  This is what leads to your success in those other areas and makes your life truly fulfilling.  Even small things can bring great happiness when you have the right inner attitude.

True happiness comes from within and it’s a feeling that can withstand a whole lot of trouble.  The secret of happiness is that the best things in life are free.  You won’t really be happy with a brand new car for long and all those material things only give a temporary happiness that doesn’t last. The secret to happiness is very simple and very basic. It all comes from inside of you and you need to find it in there now before you waste your whole life running from place to place. Happiness is more about sharing and being satisfied with what you have. That is the greatest secret of all.

Have you ever had a child that you don’t know smile at you? You can’t help but smile back at them - even if you don’t feel like smiling. As a good person, you would never glare at that happy child. No, you smile back, and you might even say some kind words. (more…)