Ten ways to be happy

  Best Ways to be Happy

1. Appreciate: The first step towards unlocking the secret of happiness begins with appreciation. Learn to appreciate what you have before you set your eyes upon acquiring that which you don't. Count your blessings and be grateful to life for what you already have, rather than crib for what you don't. Understand that no one ever has everything in life! No, not even Bill Gates! Now let us see how we can include this attitude shift in our daily lives. Don't like the fries in front of you? Be grateful that you have access to and can afford food; many, around the world, would gladly sell their souls for a mouthful of grass! Hate the shoes mom got you for your birthday? Realize that you are lucky that you are capable of wearing shoes; many people out there wish they had feet! Read through how to be happy in life to make the change.
2. Love Yourself: It is always good to improve yourself but first, appreciate who you are. Be proud of the person inside you first and then work upon making that person better. Diamonds came into being only after the potential of the mother allotrope of carbon - which doesn't even remotely resemble the precious stone that has come to be synonymous of beauty, grandeur, love and matrimonial commitment over ages - was realized! Be proud of who you are, only then can you discover what you can do. Also read through and learn more about how to be happy with yourself.
3. Be Yourself: You, as an individual, are a unique package in yourself! No one else has exactly the same qualities and attributes in exactly the same proportion as you have. Cherish this individuality and nurture it towards achieving a holistic and enjoyable existence. Chisel your individual traits and channelize your energies towards doing that which interests you. I do not guarantee tremendous material returns but I can promise that the performance would be unmatched and the satisfaction unrivaled! The joy that being you gives is highly contagious! It spreads to everyone whose lives you touch! This is the only way life can be LIVED; otherwise you are just SPENDING your life, trying to be someone else or fretting over who you are not and doing something because everyone else is doing it. There is no better way to be happy with yourself other than being yourself and doing what you like; other things just start falling into place! To quote Dr. Seuss," There is no one alive who is Youer than You."
4. Prioritize the People in Your Life: It is a futile pursuit to try to keep everyone happy. Face it, it never happens! Someone or the other will always complain or be dissatisfied with your efforts. So, start prioritizing people in your life. Sit down, take a deep breath and make a mental list of people who really matter to you, people who love and care for you and who are always there for you no matter what. These are the people worth bothering for! Rest are those who would always expect you to be perfect but would never appreciate your efforts to satisfy them. This category is not worth the trouble. The most they can do, when you don't cater to their expectations, is talk bad and, hello, talk never hurt anyone! Always remember what Dr. Seuss has said, "...those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind!"
5. Manage Your Expectations: Happiness, surprisingly, mostly comes from the simpler things in life! You may own a million dollars but you may still lose sleep over where to invest them and how to save yourself from loss. Expect less from people and situations, it makes accepting disappointment easier and still leaves you with the courage to try. This is true, especially, in relationships. When you expect too much from your partner or spouse, you indirectly put him/her under the pressure of living up to your expectations which puts strain on your relationship! This causes stress and at some point the thread snaps! A different scenario is where the pressure of expectations subjugates the person so much that he/she becomes too eager to please and lose their identity. This way, you lose the original person who had caught your affections! Keeping your expectations realistic is the highway that leads to all other ways to be happy in a relationship. Scroll through how to be happy in a relationship for more ideas.
6. Accept the Truth: Mis happenings occur in everyone's life at some point or the other. If you cannot do anything to reverse the damage then stop crying over spilled milk and move on. Life is too short to dwell on the past forever! Be it the demise of a loved one, the loss of an opportunity or the end of a relationship, if you can't do anything about it, cry once and move on. Negativity spawns more negativity. Unless you move on, you may not be able to gage other opportunities that lead towards happiness and fulfillment. For instance, people are known to have attempted/committed suicide and sunken into clinical depression on the termination of a relationship. I don't claim that such a situation can be overcome easily by positive thinking. So, let's try logical thinking, for a change! OK, so it's a relationship breakup and the experience is always unpleasant, if not bitter. Negativity in a relationship is, perhaps, the most bitter pill to swallow. Let's first evaluate the relationship itself. Was it a healthy relationship? If it was an abusive relationship, be grateful that it ended. As for the emotional hangover, you'll get over it sooner than you think! If it was a pleasant relationship, think of the happy moments you had together and be grateful that it happened, rather than cry that it ended. Were both people happy in it? If not, then realize that both people were liberated from the unnecessary pain and be happy for each other. Did it end due to personal differences or because of a third party? If it ended because of personal differences, then perhaps the differences were too great to have enabled a lifetime of togetherness and mutual respect. If it ended due to third party involvement and you were the one cheated upon, then might as well accept that your partner was not worth your trust and it is better late than never to be aware of infidelity than suffer lifelong emotional indignity. These are a few and practical ways to get over a breakup and be happy, even if the experience itself is emotionally taxing.
7. Stop Moping: Rather than feeling guilty over some action of yours, think out ways of making amends. If the damage done by you is irreversible then sincerely apologize and accept the possible punishment wholeheartedly. Accept your fault and learn a lesson from it so that it leads to your betterment. Don't entertain guilt or resentment, as it only pulls your consciousness towards abysmal negativity and hopelessness.
8. Be True to Yourself: You can be a master of cons and fool the entire world, but you can never fool yourself. You may pretend that you are immune to your conscience but it's just an act you, consciously or unconsciously, put up to pacify yourself. At the end of the day, you can never be truly happy when you are not convinced that what you have done is the right thing and was done wholeheartedly.
9. Keep an Open Mind: Be open to new events and different points of view. It becomes much easier to learn and share if you are able to accept differences in beliefs, opinions and faith. You end up gathering tons of knowledge and earning respect and gratitude. A narrow, dogmatic mind is like the frog that has never been out of a well. It doesn't believe that a world exists outside the well because it has never had the courage to venture out of the well. Let your mind venture on to new opinions and beliefs and then let it decide which ones to stick to; the rest can always remain archived as a collection of diverse knowledge and experience.
10. Be Flexible: Flexibility may make you bend, but rigidity makes you break in the face of a stormy situation, without granting you an opportunity to find a way of surviving. It is good to have strong principles and values but we must understand that while these may apply to some situations, certain situations may call for flexibility and out-of-the-box decision-making abilities. A flexible value system is not one that necessarily compromises at every step, but is that which knows when to make an exception for universal well-being.   

Happiness is within us and for us to tap. It cannot be extracted from external or material sources. We decide how we face life. Happiness cannot be taught by any teacher or spiritual guide unless we ourselves decide to be happy and make an endeavor to find our own way towards happiness. Focus on the present. Decide that today is going to be a beautiful day and stick to it! The past offers resentment and remorse and the future offers uncertainty and fear. It is only the present over which you have control; it is a gift of life, hence, called "present"! Live for today and make it beautiful for this is where happiness is; right here, right now!