Happiness as a Habit

health and Happiness are the two things that most people will tell you they desire most. Ask a parent what they want most for their child and they will almost always say, "I really don't care, as long as they are healthy and happy." Sometimes people say they want love, success or wealth, but when asked why, they think for a moment and then say because these things would make them happy.

Usually people desire health above all else but only when they feel that it is threatened. People rarely think about health when they are young, fit, pain and disease free.

The single most sought after life experience is Happiness.

If you made a list of the things you wished to improve in your life and then added notes alongside each item, detailing the amount of time and effort you were putting into each one, you would be greatly surprised at the lack of logic and or commitment you are applying to increasing or maintaining happiness. You may have happiness as the thing you most desire but your notes may reveal you spend 50 hours a week at your career, 10 hours housekeeping and 20 hours watching T.V. Next to the word 'Happiness' you may find, '10 minutes' or more likely, 'No time at all'.

Have you ever even stopped to think about what it is that makes you happy? Has it ever dawned on you to actively pursue happiness? Most of us simply consider Happiness to be a random act that catches us fleetingly and disappears all too soon.

Happiness has fascinated me my entire life, I constantly seek it and play with it. I'm getting better at prolonging it and faster at recognizing it.

Honestly, sometimes I just sit and focus on Happiness until, "I bring it on".

It takes a little concentration, sometimes some memory and sometimes imagination. Practise and focus have resulted in my ability to simply decide to be happy and I remind myself to do this often. I used to wait and be surprised and delighted when something caused me to be happy until I realized I could actually get Happiness without an event or situation.

When happiness comes accidentally it entices us to, "be in the moment". Most of us are mentally in a perpetual state of being in the past or future most of the time. In happiness, we pull our attention into the present moment to fully experience this great feeling. (Pain also has this ability.) I mention this, as I know that the most essential requirement for Happiness is to practise, 'Living in the present moment'.

Happiness is a present moment experience.

A couple of my other favourite quotes, which illustrate this point, are:

life is what happens while your busy making other plans. (John Lennon)

This is not a dress rehearsal - This is your life.

These days will one day become the good old days.

Between the wanting and the getting - Is the living.

We all wait for happy events to come and find us or we sometimes actively seek out things that we believe will bring us Happiness. Winning money, buying a big-ticket item, getting married, having a child, a