Easy ways to be happy! (Part 1)

Hi guys!

Today I want to share with you my own personal tips, how to be happy. During the bad times, I always try all these and most of times, it makes me feel better! 
I feel these tips are quite easy and common, but all you need is more and more practice :) 
I think I better describe one by one each post, so it will be much clearer for you.. 

Be thankful ( hey I know this already, so common!). This is the main key, I bet many of you have known about this but yet is still very very hard to really practice this. So how? 
All is about your mindset. Have you heard this quote? I forgot who's the author, but for sure it's not me :p " If you are not happy with the condition, change it. If you can't change it, change your mindset". 

Again, all is about your mindset. People tend to (or much easier to) see the mistakes, bad, fault, whatever you call it in events or things. I really love this story by Ajahn Brahm in his book, and I can say this is one of my life-changing-moment story. Lol. It's so simple but beautiful, titled "Two bad bricks". Long story short, imagine we build a small wall with 100 bricks, from all those 100, there are 2 slanted bricks. Those 2 are not in line with the others. What will we think in the first place? This is a failed wall, I don't like it, I am not happy with this, I will destroy this wall and build new one. Are you one of those with that thought? 

Here comes the problem of our point of view, we never notice (or just don't care) for those 98 good bricks. We just narrow down our view to the mistakes, or bad things we have or encounter. Why don't we try to broaden or view, like zoom out the wall and see, oh yeah, those 98 bricks are still good. Hmm.. This is the beautiful wall, indeed, I love it, and will take care of it. Then your life become much easier and happier. 

What are the other examples? This story is by Ajahn Brahm also (for you who don't know him, you can google his name if you are curious). Yes, you guess it right! He is my great inspiration, he is great teacher, and he is a great practitioner of  Middle Way, indeed :) I really love his stories and analogues, all so simple, yet beautiful and true. Ok, back to the story, the titled if I am not mistaken is "Nothing wrong with me". If we go to the doctor, what is the first thing you say? Doc, something's wrong with me. Why is something wrong with you? 

Easy, it's because we already set our mindset that our body should be always healthy. Why so? We all already know that every living beings all are subjected to sick, old, and death, no matter what. It's the truth. So why we all insist that we should be always healthy and young? So in the story he told us that instead, we should tell the doctor "Doc, nothing wrong with me, I am sick but I know it's normal thing. Can you please help me to heal this?" 
The fact that we are sick will not change, we still need medicine to cure it. But our point of view has changed. We don't really suffer as much as when we think being sick is something abnormal. 

These 2 stories, if you really think about it properly, are really applicable to our everyday life. And again, please consider about this. I heard this from one of great teacher too. 
As we live in this world, we play so many roles. First, we start as a child of our parents, then we become friends to other, brother, sister, niece, nephew, then we become student, after that maybe we become someone's girlfriend or boyfriend, employee, employer, teacher, religious devotees, wive or husband, and maybe most of us will become a parent, and many many more roles. 

So the thing is; please be reminded, if one of your role is not really played properly, that's not the end of the world. Please. Do. Remember. What if you fail on exam? You can still try, maybe on that role you are not a really good player; but remember you are still have many roles that you can play well. You are still a good child, or good friends to somebody, you love your hobby so much. What if you are breaking up with someone who can't treasure you? You still have a lot of roles, and you can always make the fail role to be better. I think people really need to be aware of this, so they can always think twice before become really desperate and even consider suicide *knock wood* 

So in the end, we can always think about the good sides our life, and focus on that. When we feel thankful, then all the good things will come to us even if you don't even notice it. Law of attraction. Don't exaggeratedly compare your life to other people, you never know how to walk in their shoes feel like. You can always set a standard to your life, your own accomplishment, but never ever let that thought make you feel unhappy or even depressed.  

To be happy or not is always your own choice. The ball is in your hand, guys!

Cheers!