‘General Happiness’ Archives
What Would You Do If You Didn’t Have to Work for Money?
"Live with your whole being all the days of your life. Your reward will be true happiness" - Rebecca Thomas Shane One of the best questions you can ask yourself if you are looking for a new direction in your life is “what would I do if I would get enough money each month without doing anything?” What are the things in your life you love to do – things that make you feel good and [...]
Would You Like to Have a Life without Failures?
“I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong” - Benjamin Franklin Fear of failures is one of the biggest drivers behind most people’s actions. It makes them to always look for situations where they know the possibility of failure is minimal. In other words, they miss most opportunities of their lives. What if I told you that there is no such thing as a [...]
4 Plus 1 Unconventional Methods for Waking Up Earlier
"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." - Author unknown Waking up early is almost impossible for me. Getting a cat would probably be a solution, but as I don't want to go that far, I hope that there are other solutions that work as well. I need quite a lot sleep, at least 8 or 9 hours to feel normal, and 9 to 10 hours of sleep to wake up without an alarm clock. [...]
3 Practical Steps for Making Friends and Improving Your Social Life
“Only a life lived for others is worth living” - Albert Einstein It is quite surprising to realize how many people have problems with social skills, although we humans are supposed to be social creatures. For some people good social skills come naturally and they are usually the loudest ones as well, so it might seem like most people would be good in making new friends, but that is not [...]
The Power of Giving
I stumbled upon this great story in Joshua Becker's blog "Becoming Minimalist", which he had found from the book Mr. Little John's Secrets to a Lifetime of Success: Many years ago, a 10-year-old boy walked up to the counter of a soda shop and climbed onto a stool. He caught the eye of the waitress and asked, “How much is an ice cream sundae?” “Fifty cents,” the waitress replied. The [...]
Are You Ready for REAL Freedom?
“It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.” - Chuck Palahniuk When you think about the word freedom, how do you interpret it? For many people freedom of action, movement, opinion, and ability to achieve their goals are the most important things that come into their minds. Freedom is usually seen as an external thing that other people or the society grants [...]
Why Consumerism Kills Your Happiness and How to Get Rid of It
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” –Tyler Durden (from the movie Fight Club) We live in a consumerist society, where the main purpose of our lives seems to be the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods or services in ever greater amounts. We see advertising everywhere: In television, radio, [...]
How to Get Rich by Not Chasing Money
Many people look for fast and easy ways of making money. Different people have different motivational drivers but the underlying premise is that people want to make as much money in as little time as possible with minimal effort. This is why for example get rich –schemes, network marketing opportunities, and gambling are so popular among human beings. Some people are willing to pursue [...]
Why Comparing Yourself to Others Is Harmful and How to Stop It
Comparing yourself to other people is one of the most common things we do. It is ingrained in our natural behavior and we usually can’t help doing it. Human beings are social creatures and comparing yourself to other fellow humans helps to know where one stands in society’s hierarchy. Remember when you were in school? Especially from elementary to up until high school, it was pretty much [...]
7 Amazing Productivity Tips for Lazy People
I must admit that I am quite a lazy person, like many people seem to be. Often, the most tempting way for me to spend a day would be something like going to the beach and listening to some relaxing music on my iPod. For a long time, I thought that it would be impossible for me to enjoy life and get things done at the same time, but recently I have noticed that it is not true. One of the most [...]
The Real Truth behind Perfectionism
Do you have the irrational belief that you and your environment must be perfect and you always strive to be the best, try to reach the ideal and never allow yourself to make a mistake? If so, you can call yourself a perfectionist. This is one of the most common sources for stress nowadays, so it might be useful to analyze if there are some ways to make one’s life less stressful and still [...]
Money, Debt, and Happiness
When I was younger, I thought that material things would make me happy. If I would just get enough money to buy a nice car and a nice house, I would never whine about anything anymore. There was always something that I wanted to have in the near future: new brand clothes, a new big plasma television, and a new laptop – all the things that advertisers tell us to buy if we want to feel [...]
8 Ways to Have a Horrible Body Language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Like other animals, also we humans send and interpret such signals subconsciously. According to research, between 60 and 70 percent of all meaning is derived from nonverbal behavior, so it is quite odd that we are mostly taught in school and in work how to write [...]
How I Failed to Become an Early Riser
Everyone talks about how important for your success it is to wake up early, as it is supposed to make it easier to achieve more. For many people that don’t have to wake up early because of work or school, it is quite difficult to be able to wake up to the alarm. I guess the main problem is that there is no real motivation to wake up, so it is much more satisfying to just push the snooze button [...]
Achieve All Your Dreams by Overcoming Your Fears
I watched the movie Donnie Darko yesterday, which is a really good movie by the way and I suggest you to watch it too, if you haven’t already. There was a motivational speaker character in the movie called Jim Cunningham, who was talking about two main forces in life: Fear and Love. We were going to find out later in the movie that this guy was a pedophile (sorry for the spoiler) and a joke in [...]
