in life, you rarely get what you think you will get – it is always below your expectations. the problem is you have high expectations – which is a good thing – to wish and work for more. i don’t want to say lower your expectations. keep your expectations high as it keeps your optimism high and it keeps your positive energy high – it keeps you happy – which is the key to life – staying positive through ups and downs – and keeping happy. but when you do get something less than what you were expecting – you do feel let down – you do feel like you should have got more – you do feel confused and deflated a bit. this will happen when you have a vision of the future and it is filled with big rewards or windfalls – those high expectations we keep. however, you should feel good for getting something – as it is always better than getting nothing. look at the positive side of things – you did get rewarded for your work and effort – though it wasn’t the big win you were expecting – you got something and you should be grateful. you should see this as success and you should be happy and ready for the next opportunity that comes from this success. so bottom line is – life is tough and we rarely get everything we want – so be happy for the wins (no matter how big or small) – because you have made progress and should be happy, grateful and ready for what’s next. take what you can get and be happy. stop complaining for what you didn’t get.
Tag: happiness
you must be content
you must be content with what you have. you must not wish for the greener grass. you must stop wishing for anything. this is the only way you will actually achieve your dreams. if you wish for love, you will not find it. if you wish for success, you will not find it. if you wish for wealth, you will not find it. stop looking for anything and work on being happy with what you already have – love, family, health, etc. if you look around, you will see that you are blessed in many ways. you will never receive beyond what you have until you accept and appreciate what you have. it is hard to stop wanting more – as this is human nature – to take as much as you can – to get as much as you can – to want what others have. but you must stop this thinking ASAP. force yourself to appreciate what you have. do this and all your wishes and dreams will come true
be grateful
looking back
it is hard to think about time and space and past and future and even present. we can never go too deep into these concepts and we struggle to find our place, our peace, our happiness. we can’t grab this moment right now and hold on to it. we can say we feel happy right now. we can look at the sky and the clouds and the trees and we can feel the breeze and the sun right now. we can say we are in the moment. we can say that and we can enjoy the moment or moments -but then they are gone and we move to the next present moments – some good, some bad. so it is frustrating that we can’t hold these present moments forever – we only have fleeting moments – just like time – fleeting. so all we really have is when we look back in time. when we look back, we see what we had – we see how good things were – even how much fun we had last weekend or on a recent trip. in the moment, we are there, doing it – we can think it is good, but we don’t know how good it was until we look back. when we look back, we see instant good memories and we realize – wow, that was good. like last week was good – but now it is gone. but the great thing is every moment and every day can become a wow moment. the good old days always look good and you think it won’t be the same. but today will look just as good when you look back as the old days look to you now. it is a crazy dynamic, but one that actually keeps us loving life – it allows us to then know that every present moment is actually a possible good memory in the future – so the cycle is complete and it is ok if we can’t hold on to the present moment – because coming back around to it when we look back is just as good.
every child is different
you cannot compare one child to the next, you cannot compare one sibling to the next. each child has his/her own personality. each child has strengths and each child has weaknesses – just like every other person on this earth. your sibling is good at this and you are good at that. you have to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and you have to embrace them. you cannot compare yourself to others. you will live the life your are supposed to live. one might take a traditional path and be very happy – and another might take the path less traveled and be happy. one might go to this college and one might go to that college – and both can be very happy with their path. one might take this job and one might take that job – both being happy. one might live in the country and one might live in the city – both happy. do not compare yourself to others – because you are not them and they are not you. otherwise you will be miserable over something you cannot control.
enthusiasm
it is hard to explain. it is the question asked forever by everyone. it is embedded deep in the human mind and soul. it is why we all live or die. it challenges us every day. it never relents. it is the up and down of life. it is happiness. brought to the public forefront many years ago, happiness is truly what we all strive for – but there is no such thing as constant happiness. we must accept that we will not always be happy – all the time. yet this is hard to do. we want to be happy all the time. we think it is the way to live. but once we accept that this is impossible, we must continue to remind ourselves of this very fact. we must understand that not being happy all the time is the natural way. we will have down times, so what we need to do is keep up our enthusiasm for life. knowing that life is not all roses, we need to keep the spark of life alive. we must not let the trials of life beat us down. we must remember we are alive right now – we are not dead yet – and while we are alive we must force ourselves to keep up our zest for life – we must keep that zest going – the same zest we had when we were younger. it was easier then but now it is harder – so you need to work harder to not let the spark die. like everything, you must never quit, never give up -and that goes for your zest for life too. keep it going. keep up your enthusiasm no matter what. if you don’t, then you lose a part of who you are.
extra busy is good
when you start a new job, you are busy in the first month. but when you start a new job and you are extra busy – that is a rare thing. when you want to work more and more – when you have dinner, then go back to work – when you have so many people to reach to get the word out – when you have a jump on the market and time is of the essence – you want to spend every minute getting out there – when you don’t have time to read the news in the morning anymore – when you don’t have time to write a blog post until the last day of the month – extra busy is good – and we should all want to be extra busy during the heart of our career – of our life. relish that extra busy time.
daily happiness
you must have daily happiness to get through life. you must have things in every day that you look forward to. you must have at least 1 thing per day that you look forward to. this is key to getting through life relatively happy. it can be eating lunch, it can be watching a tv show, it can be doing a workout or taking a run, it can be reading a book, it can be seeing someone, it can be helping someone, it can be the drive home, it can be doing things at work – it can be any of these things. but the important thing is that you have at least 1 thing to look forward to – that you enjoy doing – that gets you from one day to the next. if you have nothing to look forward to each day – then you must deliberately put something on your schedule that you know you want to do and you must do that thing every day. human nature says that you have naturally figured this out already – but if you are in a rut and don’t have this figured out – go figure it out now – right now. waiting and mulling through life makes no sense. why are you here – but to enjoy some things in life – and to enjoy some things in life every day. do it now.
you must give in
after time, after you get older – there are some things you must stop fighting about. you must give in and stop unnecessary fighting with your spouse. your old self says keep fighting for your point. your old self keeps pushing you to talk about the budget and talk about what things cost. stop doing this. if you need something, buy it. there is no need to quote the budget as an excuse. just give in before the fight and buy it. you need it, buy it. stop useless fighting. just get in your car, drive and buy it. why fight about what you need. why go down a path of fighting over something you need to buy – something you need for the house or the family. it has to happen whether you fight about it or not. just give in and do it. believe it or not – this is evolving even though it feels like you are being broken down. you are not giving up – you are giving in to the inevitable – without all the fuss you used to go through. you have seen the light and it is a shorter path to happiness and less fighting. realize there is no use in fighting over certain things – just say it sounds good, give in and move on. this is another level of understanding yourself that you have reached. congrats, you found the path forward. give in and grow up.
enjoy status quo
we all want more – it is human nature. we continue to look to the future to solve our current problems. we think things will be better in the future. we fear change, but deep down we want change – we want change for the better. we know change always comes but we fight against it because we get comfortable in the current routine – the current status quo. but even though we fight change – we don’t actually embrace the status quo. we don’t often appreciate what we have right now. this is a big mistake. right now in your life many things are going well. these are things you take for granted and don’t appreciate. these are things you will only appreciate when they are gone. right now people you love are still alive. right now your family is doing ok. right now no one you love is in the hospital. right now you have friends that care for you. right now you are healthy. right now you are able to pay your bills. right now you can walk down the street and look at the birds in the trees. right now your status quo is good. yes, you have struggles and you look to the future to erase those struggles. but as you look ahead, don’t ignore what you have in the current status quo. enjoy the current status quo because it might be better than the future status quo.