Color Your Life Happy

Living life more happily is a goal I share with many. Even though we sometimes let our efforts get thwarted by people and things, making this goal a priority will keep us on the right path most of the time.

You can find many volumes written about how to live a better life, more happily and purposefully. The words of wisdom I trust most, however,  are profound in their simplicity and based on the struggles and overcomings of the writer.

  Shanel Yang, Easy Steps to Success, is a site that offers refreshingly unencumbered guidelines, tips and inspiration for achieving happiness and success.

Shanel Yang is a South Korean woman who came to the US at an early age and had to grow up fast in order to help her parents find their way and make a home in a new land. She rose to the task and learned many important life lessons along the way.

She believes that you can be happy if you are successful with people, work, money. Because you also need good communication skills and knowledge of your rights,  she also adds English and law to this list. (By the way, she graduated from UCLA Law School and practiced law for 10 years in Los Angeles.)

Her articles and blogs dating back to Oct. 2007 are loaded with great information, tips and advice. You will gain much insight and inspiration from Shanel’s website and blog. To get started, check out her four quick tips for happiness.

“There was a very cautious man Who never risked, or tried. He never hoped, he never failed; He never laughed or cried. And when he one day passed away, His insurance was denied For since he never really lived They claim he never died!” When I saw this poem on Rich Vosler’s blog recently,  I reflected on what we mean by living? It’s clear that people can live very different lives and still experience happiness.  So what did this poem mean by “living?”

There are a number of dictionary definitions that most people can claim as true for them. Living means to exist, financially support yourself, dwell in a certain location, and remain in human memory. These are all worthy and important things. But I’m sure the poem refers to the deeper and broader meaning of living– leading a satisfying, active, purposeful and happy life.

What can you do to lead a satisfying, purposeful and happy life?

This is the best part. The answer is different for each of us, but the way to get there is to do what makes you happy and adds joy to the lives of others.

Most of us knew how to have fun when we were children. Remember when you would laugh at an odd sound or a funny face or absolutely nothing? Or skip to school? Or fall in the snow and just stay there making snow angels? To start living, get in touch with your childlike spirit.

Decide what you’re passionate about, what gives you joy and spend time doing more of it. The ultimate in happiness is being to do this for a living.

As pointed out in the poem, living is also risking failure by going after what you want, and giving in to tears when they come.

So, avoid coming to the same fate as the person in the poem. Get busy living.

People frequently wish us an extraordinary day. What does that say about an ordinary day?

In our haste to attain exceptional success, fantastic relationships and exorbitant amounts of money, many of us miss out on the beauty of an ordinary day. This is what Michael Neill shared in an article where he explores why a friend and mentor said to him “Have an average day!” Michael was surprised by this until his friend explained what was behind it.

He learns that after studying suicide notes a university researcher decided that the enemy of happiness is “the curse of exceptionality.” You see, if we were all exceptional then being exceptional would become commonplace. In this case everyone would fail since exceptional means standing out from the rest.

And, as anyone who has excelled knows, being exceptional can bring on feelings of isolation and estrangement. Or, on the other side, believing you can never attain greatness can make you believe your life is worthless and without meaning.

Neill ends his article with these final words about an ordinary day

the meaning of our lives comes from the differences we make with them, though these differences need not be huge to have a profound impact - we may well have the ultimate prescription for a happy, productive life: Be an average, happy person making a small positive difference (and having a happy, average day). In doing this, you create a kind of exceptionality that everyone can share.

In an article written by Joe Holmes, a student at George Mason University, he says sitting in classrooms all day brings on learned helplessness. Instead of being out doing, trying out and living, we tell the young to “prepare” for these things. It’s what I call “fixin’ to.”

I heartily agree with Joe when he says

When you’re constantly being told to prepare for life, you slowly begin to think you aren’t ready to live it. You need to wait to be taught formally how to do something before you give it a try. But this is at odds with the reality of life. As I heard (ironically enough) in a quote from my school’s agenda: When it comes to experience, we always get the test before the lesson.

It’s like believing you need to read the manual to your new computer or digital camera thoroughly before you can start using them. Just the opposite is true. You can only learn to use technology by trying them out, making mistakes and finding the solutions. No manual covers every contingency.

My youngest daughter has a theory that a piece of technology should be easy enough to understand without a manual. I think this is the basis of the term “user-friendly.”

By the time we finally understand this need to live life, many of us have squandered our youth in a never-ending state of preparation. We keep taking classes, attending seminars, but never living. Sadly some make it to adulthood never having left the starting gate and as Wayne Dyer says “die with their songs still inside them.”

Don’t let this be you.