The Elusive Happiness Factor: How to discover it

By Frosty Wooldridge

If you look around your community whether you share a schoolroom, workout class or meeting place—someone laughs a lot, smiles and expresses their happiness. 

(Two happy guys on a bicycle tour. What makes them happy?  They love to pedal their bicycles over long distances.  Thus, they pursue their happiness by bicycling.  What makes you happy?  Pursue it by doing it.) 

How come some people express happiness while others slog through their days?  What gifts do some enjoy while the rest of us endlessly search for that elusive “myth” called “happiness”? 

Notice when you visit a restaurant. One waitress beams at you, talks and shares her energy.  You love the attention and you tip her well.  At other times, you suffer a “somber” waitress who takes your order, forgets to fill your water glasses and fails to inspire you.  Her tip becomes the bare minimum.  Why did one waitress bring you joy and the other something different?   It’s called “The happiness factor.”

Fabulous living engages specific activities that revolve around your mind, body and spirit.   Once you tap into their daily expressions, you engage the powers of happiness.

Face the fact that you will lose loved ones, suffer defeats and experience betrayal by friends and adversaries in your lifetime.  You must choose to move forward from each “event” by using it as a lesson in your “life book.”  Take notes so you can transform yourself toward your highest and best with each life lesson.

Commune with yourself daily via moments of meditation.  Talk with your spirit, your mind and your body.  They will share profound energies with you.  Live in the highest and best vibrations within you.

Affirm yourself to yourself.  Dynamic affirmations create highest vibrational levels within your body and mind.   Open your heart, believe in your life and always move forward.  As you gain greater “emotional strength”, you feel greater power to command your days.

Enhance your vision of your life by moving toward that which inspires you.  Something “ticks” inside you that elevates your actions. Follow it. 

Enthusiastic living coincides with your body, mind and spirit. The more you feed those three entities, the more you empower your total self.   If you look at the Latin root of the word “enthusiasm”, you find “En Theo” or “with God.”  Whatever that means for you, it could mean “Creator”; “Great Spirit” or nothing at all.  The key: if you work with enthusiasm, you work with the energy of the universe.  It thrives through every cell in your body, mind and spirit. 

Henry David Thoreau may be able to describe the “Happiness Quotient” better than my efforts:

“If you advance confidently toward your dreams, and endeavor to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with success unexpected in common hours.  You will pass through invisible boundaries. New and liberal laws will engage your life, and you live with the license of a higher order of beings.” 

What does that entail? 

In order to function in top form, exercise for 1 to 1.5 hours daily five to six days a week. Cross train. Swim, lift weights, pedal a bicycle and walk or run.  You harness the best in your body by letting your muscles, bone and blood know you need them in top form.  You and they need to invigorate yourselves daily.

Find a single friend to walk, talk and share with over the phone or over lunch.  Talk about everything or about nothing, but keep the “essence” of friendship to anchor your heart. A happy heart translates into a happy life.   www.MeetUp.com

Step out of your “comfort zone”, which I call your “dead zone.”   If you stay too comfortable in your daily living, your entire being may become “fat” on comfort.  Try something new.  Buy something different.  Attend an interesting meeting you saw in the local paper.  Such movement into something new terrifies and excites your cells toward evolving into a new you.  Notice you love to travel because you move into the unknown.  That’s why it’s so much fun.

Read, write and express yourself in creative ways that benefit your sense of accomplishment.  Instead of watching the average of 4.5 hours of TV Americans average nightly, get into a good book, new painting, “Free University Class” at the local college or anything to evolve you into your growing self.

When you engage creative living, you discover greater thirst and endless happiness.  As you fully engage with life, you kick the “happiness factor” into full gear.  You’ll find that you attract others to your energy, your enthusiasm and your life.

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