DailyHappyLiving.com

gopimenon April 28th, 2009

Hi Friends,

Glad some of you have found the earlier two Happy Living Tips useful.   So here’s Tip No.3 which I call `Change Channels!’

I find extremely effective in keeping a happy frame of mind.   It is a simple 17-second technique taught by Dr. Robert Anthony a popular author and self-help guru.  I learned this a couple of years ago when I studied one of his courses.  I use it regularly and you may want to do so too – if you want to remain cheerful. 

Dr. Robert Anthony calls it the `Flip Switch’ technique but I prefer to call it `Change Channels’ because it relates easier to me since I watch TV a lot!   When I don’t like a particular program or even a segment of the program, I immediately `change channels’ to one that I do like – much to my wife’s chagrin!  She dislikes switching between channels and would prefer to remain on one channel even if it was boring!

To come back to the matter at hand, in my last post I mentioned that we have to be aware of our thoughts & feelings from instant to instant, and choose the thoughts we allow to dwell in our mind.  Nice word `dwell’ which means to stay in a place (dwelling).   Just as we would be careful to vet our tenants who dwell in our apartments or houses, so we should also vet the thoughts that we allow to reside in our mind!

This Tip helps us do just that.

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HAPPY LIVING TIP #3

FLIP-SWITCH Technique (or CHANGE CHANNELS Technique):

Whenever you become aware that you are not in a happy mood, CHANGE your THOUGHTS instantly, by thinking of something pleasant and holding that pleasant thought for 17 seconds.

When you are able to hold the new `happier’ thought for more than 17 seconds, the older unhappy thought is displaced and you will start to feel happier!

——————————————————————————————————————-

UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES:

Our Thoughts create our moods or emotions.  Hence if we take care to replace our thoughts at every instant to those that are more in harmony with what we really want (i.e. to feel good), then we can gradually make it a habit to be happy.  When we feel happy, we send out good vibrations and so we attract good things into our life.

“No one is going to flow positive energy all day long. Flip Switching is simply an action you take to get from a low vibration, to a higher one.” – Dr. Robert Anthony

PRACTICAL APPLICATION:

There are many ways to `flip-switch’ or `change channels’  but I favor the following:

• Photos of Loved Ones: I keep a special collection of photos of my sons when they were small, in an album.  Whenever I look at those endearing, funny or silly photos, my mood changes immediately to one of happiness.    Initially when I was practicing this Tip, I kept the small album handy and everytime I needed to `change channels’ I looked at these photos.  After some time these photos were so ingrained in my mind that I only had to think about the photos and I would feel happy.  So I could easily `change channels’ in my mind!   (NOTE:  There is a caveat about `loved ones’.  It is preferable to think about small children because most parents feel unconditional love for them.  It may not work as well with your spouse or significant other – especially if you unhappy feelings started with them!)
• Think of Your Pets: If you are single, then you can do the same as above with photos of your pets!
• Think of Past Successes: List down your past successes and achievements that mean a lot to you and read them often.  So that when you want to use these happy thoughts and feelings associated with them, it becomes easy and habitual.
• Think of Lovely Travel Destinations :    If you have photos of any favorite Cities, Sceneries or Sunsets etc. that give you serenity and peace and joy;  then you can use them as described above for Loved Ones.
• Etc. etc.

In summary, whenever you feel out of sorts or unhappy,  monitor your thoughts at that instant and immediately think of happier thoughts for about 17 seconds or so, until you become happier.

In my next post I shall finally come to grips with `what is happiness?’ in a post called `Happiness 101′.   Be sure to come back here soon.

• happy living
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gopimenon April 24th, 2009

“The secret to being happy is to be aware that you are not!”

HEY!  That sounds like a cryptic saying by one of the old masters!

Great!  I am especially happy I came up with that sentence because my family considers me long-winded and are always asking me to come to the point!  I guess it is an occupational hazard I face because with my engineering background, even when I discuss philosophy,  I feel the need to cover all angles!

Coming back to the statement above `The secret to being happy is to be aware that you are not!’ I can hear you saying: “Of course I am aware when I am not happy!  What are you talking about?”

I’m glad you asked.   Think about it, are you REALLY aware that you are unhappy, at the instant that you feel upset? Normally we are not.  What we do is we allow all the little irritations to build up in our mind and over time we feel bad and don’t know why.   We blame it on our mood!   But a mood is not just something that appears out of the blue.  It is the sum of a series of thoughts and feelings we are not aware of.

EXAMPLE:
Let me give you an example of how petty irritations end up changing your mood from happy to morose. Several years ago when I worked in a small town the commute time from home to the power station was only about 10 minutes.

One day I left the office at 4 pm in a happy mood because I was expecting to join my tennis buddies on court at 4.30 pm.  However by the time I reached home at 4.10 pm my mood had changed to one of anger and brooding.  I asked myself `Why did my mood change from happy to angry all within the space of 10 minutes?’  I retraced the incidents that had happened on my trip from the power station.

• First, as I reversed slowly from my garage, I was forced to apply the emergency brakes because another car just whizzed by without warning.
• Then when I reached the main gate, I had to queue behind a row of cars.
• When I was finally outside the gate and turning into the  main road, a motorbike roared across the front of my car, again causing me to brake.  Etc. etc.
• By the time I reached home, at least 10 petty disturbances had impinged on my mind, thereby causing the appropriate negative feelings.
• I had not been consciously aware of my thoughts or feelings but each petty incident had registered some irritation on my mind so that by the time I reached home I was in a bad mood.  It being a case of “the last straw that broke the camel’s back”.

MEANING of TODAY’S TITLE:
If I had been consciously aware of each incident and the feelings associated with it, then I would not have ended up being in such a foul mood!  So that is the meaning behind the title of today’s post.

If we can continually monitor our thoughts and feelings on an instant by instant basis, and choose to change our thoughts to more happy ones, then we can cultivate the Habit of Happiness!

As I have mentioned early on in this blog, our happiness depends on the thoughts we allow to occupy our mind.  In order to ensure that these thoughts remain happy, we have to continually weed out the unhappy thoughts. To do that we have to be AWARE of the state of our mind at every instant.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION:
Nowadays because I regularly follow the Happiness Tips 1 & 2 in this blog, I am seldom in a bad mood.  However I still have to be on guard all the time. Continue Reading »

• happiness , happy living , law of mind , unhappiness
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gopimenon April 22nd, 2009

Hope today’s title caused you to PAUSE and THINK!

Today’s post is all about being GRATEFUL – one of the easiest and fastest ways to become happy!  Too many of us take everything for granted.   Let me relate a very poignant (touching) experience I had about 3 years ago:

True Story: I was in the town of Kuala Perlis for two weeks on a technical writing job for the power station there.   I was staying at the hotel just opposite the ferry terminal to Langkawi.   One evening I was having dinner at a restaurant nearby (what locals call a `mamak’ shop), when I noticed a group of young men at a nearby table.

Most of them were fishermen or farmers with dark weather-beaten countenances, but one person stood out.  His face was fair and finely chiseled, and he was engaged in animated conversation with the others.   Then I noticed his left hand (or more correctly the lack of it)!   His left arm stopped just below his elbows ending in a stump with a few little protuberances (soft bubbles of flesh) that made up his `hand’.

He had no palm or fingers.  Yet he was holding a cigarette in that deformed limb.  When he reached down for a drink I was stunned to observe that his right hand too was similar – ending in a stump with a few small appendages in place of fingers.  So how did he drink?  His `fingers’ were not strong enough or long enough to hold the glass.

Fortunately his elbows were working fine.   So he held the glass between both his `arm-stumps’ and by bending his elbows brought the glass to his mouth, and drank as though it were the most natural thing in the world!  Yet he never looked morose or dejected.   In fact he seemed to be the life of that little party!

Later when he was about to leave, I had another shock – he rolled out a motorbike, not one modified for the disabled, but a normal one.  When he rode away, the shopkeeper saw me looking and said to me:  `Do you know that both his feet are also deformed?’  I hadn’t noticed because of the special shoes he wore.

Friends, can you imagine that?

That was an unforgettable lesson for me on the power of living in gratitude – to be able to carry on a `normal’ life in spite of such horrific disabilities!  That is also when I realized the true value of my elbows! So I am not being facetious when I say “Thank God for My Elbows!”   I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Let us think about this.  We see a blind man and we think `Thank God I’m not blind’.   We see a cripple and say `thank God for my legs’.  But has anyone ever said “Thank God for my elbows!” I guess not.  Because we take most things that Nature has given us for granted.  We don’t appreciate them enough or think about them at all!  Instead of living happily each day in GRATITUDE for all that we have, we spend the time COMPLAINING about all that we do not have!

Imagine this scenario: If I had no elbow of if it were fused solid, how would I reach into my pocket?  How would I comb my hair?   Oops! That’s a silly question – don’t have any hair to comb?  Okay but I still have to drink don’t I?  This bottle of water – how would I drink?  How would I brush my teeth? How would I eat?  How would I use the computer?  How would I write?   How would I hug someone?

Isn’t it incredible that without my elbows I could not do any of the thousand and one little daily actions that I take for granted?  Tying a shoelace, opening an umbrella, even waving goodbye – these are all impossible without elbows!

So I leave you with that thought and another practical tip for happy living:

“Be grateful for everything that you do have, even if it seems so common and unimportant as your elbows!” — Gopi Menon

See you soon!

• gratitude , happy living , self acceptance
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gopimenon April 16th, 2009

Hi Friends,

I’m so glad that some of you found Tip #I useful and have decided to practice it!   So here’s another tip that will help establish happy relationships between you and your spouse, your friends, your colleagues and all other people.

HAPPY LIVING TIP #2 : The Mirror Exercise!

All you do is look at yourself  in the mirror with love, twice every day for about 5 minutes at a time!

I can hear you readers going: “I look at myself in the mirror everyday – so what is the difference?”   The difference is that I am not talking about looking at the external you as you do when brushing your teeth, or washing your face or shaving or putting on make up!   You are to practice looking at yourself with love!

Initial Challenges:

Initially when I first started the mirror exercise, my mind could only focus on things that I did not like.  My imperfections – nose too big, crooked teeth, balding, etc. etc.   So how could I love myself?  (Most probably these are the same feelings you too may have, at first.)

But after persisting for several days, one day I suddenly realized:  “Hey, with all my imperfections, I am still special, I am lovable, I am one-of-a-kind, I deserve to love and be loved  – I am much more than my looks!”

Imagine if someone invented a doll that could raise its eyebrows, or smile, or cry or frown – wouldn’t we consider that doll to be special?  But we are much more than that:  We can not only do all the above but also THINK (imagine, dream, plan), FEEL emotions (happiness, anger, sorrow, generosity, compassion, altruism etc …) !

When we realize just how special, how unique we are, in spite of our imperfections, then we attain the state of unconditional love!  This state of loving yourself unconditionally, is called Self Acceptance.

SELF ACCEPTANCE:

The first step in achieving happy human relationships is Self Acceptance.    If we cannot love ourselves, how can others love us?  Also if we cannot love ourselves, how can we love others?

I like what some wit once said: “The problem with going for a holiday is that I have to take myself!” How true?  If we cannot find peace within ourselves, it makes no difference which country or holiday resort we go to!  We still won’t find peace and happiness.

So the first thing is Accept Yourself,with all your good and bad points – your talents and your faults, your strengths and your weaknesses, your quirks and your foibles! Then you will be able to accept others just as they are, which is the second step in maintaining happy human relationships.  Continue Reading »

• anger , happy living , self acceptance
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gopimenon April 9th, 2009

Hi Friends,

This post is divided into three sections as mentioned above.   Let us take it one at a time.

BUCKY:

I can hear you asking “Who or what the heck is Bucky?”  Well Bucky is short for one of the greatest of minds who lived in the Twentieth Century – Buckminster Fuller.    He was one of our world’s first futurists and global thinkers.  Born July 12th 1895 (year of the automobile, and radio), at age 22 he married Anne Hewlett.   He was the inventor of the Geodesic Dome and dozens of other patents.

He had a lot of personal tragedies:

• In 1922, his first child died in his arms of pneumonia just a month before her fourth birthday, after having survived both infantile paralysis and spinal meningitis.
• Five years later in 1927, his second daughter Allegra, was born.  It was the same year he went bankrupt and lost the company he had started with his father-in-law.   Feeling totally depressed, he stood on the edge of Lake Michigan and contemplated suicide.  It was then some voice told him `You are not here in this world for yourself!’ Those words caused him to re-evaluate his life and the world!

From that day he decided to commit himself, his wife and infant daughter to solving world problems by designing artifacts that were capable of “doing more with less”.    He decided to pay no attention to `earning a living’; never promoting or selling or paying others to do so.   He believed that if his designs were good for the world, then nature would take care of him by good precession!

How did it turn out?  Well he was well looked after by nature!  He has owned 43 cars, 3 planes, and several boats.  Although Fuller never graduated from college, he was awarded nearly 50 honorary doctorates for his work in science and the humanities, and over 100 major awards of merit, including the cover of Time magazine in 1964.
He died in 1983 at age 88.  If you want to know more just google his name!

PRECESSION:

What is `precession’?  In most small dictionaries you won’t even find the word precession!   But on the internet you can see some examples,but mostly it describes precession as related to geography & physics (about the rotation of the earth, gyroscopes etc.)

In 1980 Buckminster Fuller himself said that only about 1 in 10 million people understood `precession’.  Well I hope that by the end of this post, I can help to increase that ratio somewhat!  And that you the reader may have acquired a working knowledge of this `life-concept’. Continue Reading »

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gopimenon April 6th, 2009

Hi Friends,

For the last several posts I have been talking about the principles behind happy living – although there have been enough practical hints (even some blatant suggestions) in each of those posts.  However I understand that they might have seemed a little too `deep’ and intimidating to many.   So today’s post will be a nice change of pace!  No deep thinking required, just simple action!

For today I want to give you a specific, practical and simple tip that will help you start your day right. Don’t overlook this tip or underestimate its usefulness, just because it seems so simple as to seem almost trite!

HAPPY LIVING TIP No. I

First thing in the morning, GREET someone at home with a Bright, Cheery & Enthusiastic “GOOD MORNING!”

Living alone?   Then, as soon as you wake up, look at YOURSELF in the mirror and say “Good Morning” to yourself with all the cheerfulness & enthusiasm you can muster!

NOTE: It is important you do this first thing in the morning so that you start the day RIGHT!   Do not wait until you reach your office to wish your office colleagues.  By the time you reach the office, the traffic might have put you in a despondent mood!

Now you may be thinking: “How can such a simple action help us become happy?”   The reason is that there are  several underlying principles involved in carrying out that simple action!  These are listed below.

UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES:

1. Happy Thoughts lead to Cheerful Actions: To sound enthusiastic, you need to feel cheerful.  To feel cheerful, you need to think happy thoughts.  This is one of the principles at work here.
2. When we Feel Happy we send out Good Vibrations: I am sure each one of you has experienced this principle – at a party some people repel you and some attract you.   Do you think it is the miserable ones who attract you?  (If so you need to be aware of this principle even more, and do some soul-searching!)
3. We Speak it into Existence: This is allied to your belief and the Law of Attraction:  If you expect a Good Morning, you are much more likely to enjoy one.  If you say “What a Lousy Day?”, what kind of day can you expect?

PRACTICAL APPLICATION:

• The first thing I do when I wake up is to be grateful for waking up!   As some one once said: “Anytime I wake up without a chalk outline around my body, it’s a GREAT Day!” Then to put myself in a good mood I look out the window and appreciate, truly appreciate what I see and what I hear.   I realize how grateful I am that I am not blind, I am not deaf, I can walk, I can talk, ….   How wonderful to be alive!

• On days when I wake up feeling lousy, I talk to myself as follows:  “Why am I feeling lousy at this moment?”  Because I’m having some lousy thoughts.  “Gopi, who is in control of your thoughts?”  I am.  “So why not choose to think only the kind of thoughts that will make you feel good?”   Why not indeed?  Then I deliberately think happy thoughts – the easiest way to do that is to feel grateful for things I do have.   Within a few minutes I am feeling good and upbeat.

• Then I am in the mood to go downstairs and greet my wife with a bright and cheery `GOOD MORNING!’

NOTE: Since I began this practice several years ago, both my wife and I have actually come to look forward to our morning greetings.   We even try to outdo each other to see who sounds more enthusiastic!   This is really a far cry from all those days of glum greetings or no greetings at all.

Well Friends, just TRY IT!  Say `GOOD MORNING’ enthusiastically to Yourself or your Spouse or your Colleagues and see how Your day brightens up for you.

More tips coming up in future posts.  Keep reading.

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gopimenon April 5th, 2009

Does the title seem egotistic?  Actually it is not.  It is just a basic truth – that each one of us lives in his/her own world according to the beliefs each holds about life!

Our beliefs are built up over the years by the teachings of our parents, elders & teachers;  by age-old superstitions; by peers & friends; by books and the public media.   After a time each one of us forms our own set of beliefs that CONTROL the way we live our life.   Let’s  take some extreme cases to prove this point:

• the beliefs of a nun are very different from that of a hooker, hence their worlds are different, even if both live in the same town.
• the beliefs of a gangster are totally different from that of a philanthropist.
• the lives of Einstein, Hitler, Gandhi, Churchill and Lincoln were each very different according to each one’s beliefs!

This is true even of members of the same family:  the Father’s world is totally different from that of the Mother’s as is that of each child.  Although they may live in the same house, each person’s daily duties, their thoughts, actions and responses  are totally different – right from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep.   Even in sleep they have different dreams!

Thus instead of `The World According to Gopi’, the title of this post could just as well have been:

`My Present Beliefs About Life, Mind and the Universe that Allow for Daily Happy Living’!

These beliefs have evolved over decades of learning, reading and introspection.  After years of study, frustration, confusion and overcoming superstitions, I have finally formulated my own system of beliefs which I find makes it easy for me to live happily every day.

NOTE to the READER: Before I list out these beliefs, here are some quotations I would like you to ponder on:

• “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it (even if I have said it) unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense” – The Buddha 

• “Always question everything.  Ask: `What’, `Why’, `Why Not’, `How’, and `What If’’ before you accept anything as true” – Socrates

• “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary at least once in your life to doubt as far as possible all things” - Rene Descartes

Because I have taken these admonitions to heart from a young age, I have grown up unafraid to question any and everything, until it `agrees with my own reason’.   So here it is, finally – my beliefs in the form of a list.   Each belief listed here will be expanded upon in subsequent posts.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GOPI

(My Beliefs about Life, the World, Mind etc.)

ABOUT the CREATOR/GOD:

1. I believe that the Creator is NOT stupid! Therefore this world, that He/She created is the ideal place for us to explore, experience and express ourselves to the best of our talents and abilities.   I do not have to keep searching for a better world.   I find it contradictory (even paradoxical) when people say they revere the Creator, but then have no respect for His creation – namely this world.   They claim this world is a place for punishment;  people are born to suffer etc….
2. I believe that the Creator is GOOD! God is NOT a vindictive dictator who needs to be continually appeased with offerings/sacrifices etc!  God always has our best interests at heart!   We were NOT created to be puppets to be manipulated at His whims and fancies – as the Greek Gods (Zeus, Hera etc.) were said to be.

ABOUT the WORLD & REALITY: Continue Reading »

• happiness , happy living , unhappiness
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