Archive | April, 2010

Do You Want to be Right or Happy?

By on April 6, 2010 in Life Balance, Mood

Do you want to win or be happy? You may not be able to have both! There is only one real question you must face in an argument: do you want to win by demonstrating that you are right, or do you want to cooperatively come to a resolution with your partner?  You can win all the arguments you want, and feel triumphant about always being right, but that doesn’t get you anything but more conflict.  Or you can give up fixating on who won and lost, because in reality, either you both win the argument or you both lose.

Define the situation objectively – What is the conflict really about and what needs to happen?

Clarify the contest – It’s not you against me, it’s you and I against the problem.

This is not easy for me, because I ALWAYS WANT TO BE RIGHT. But I would rather be happy and have a peaceful relationship, so I am working at it right along with all of you.

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Are You Happy?

By on April 5, 2010 in Mood, Personal Growth

We all desire more happiness in our lives of course. But do we even know what happiness is? Happiness is something that we feel and experience inside our bodies and minds. Unfortunately, many of us think of happiness as a feeling of pleasure triggered by some external happening; we got that promotion or raise, we met that terrific friend or partner, we received praise for our work or our kids. On the contrary – true happiness isn’t contingent on any circumstances. It is a sense of contentment that exists independently of the good fortune that might find us. We only need to look at people who have had drastic changes in circumstances; “overnight” successes, lottery winners or fortuitous marriages. Only a short time after these occurrences, the people are right back at the former happiness levels.

Real and lasting happiness is a sense of contentment, acceptance, connection and purpose that we experience as a result of our interaction with life! That’s it. Other people or money can’t “make” us happy. Certainly our circumstances can make life easier or more difficult, but happiness is all in our perception.  How happy do you want to be?

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