Easy Ways to be Happy! (Part two)

Hi Guys! 

So sorry for the long period between my previous post and this one. Well, if I have to find an excuse, I have been busy preparing for the wedding; and my official engagement has just over last week *cheers*. Lol. 
Once again, apologize for not dilligently updating this blog. I will try my best, though! *hop hop*

Back to the topic, what is another easy way to be happy? Note: this is my personal sharing and this what works for me, I hope can be beneficial for you too! Be present. What does this mean? Ask yourself at this moment, where am I, what am I doing, what do I feel right now? Yes. As simple as that. How come this simple stuff can help to make us happier? 

For us (or at least for me), it happens too many times that we are not living in the present moment. You are now sitting on your chair, but you are too busy thinking other past and future stuff. Hey, this included excessively looking at your social media as well! *slapmyself* Do you realize? Looking too much at your social media makes you not enjoying present moment, the real life around you. 

All your thought of future, past, or somebody's life via social media, will lead you to various emotions or feelings. Worry, anxiety, sad, anger, curious, excited, and so on. This is not wrong. But the idea is to reduce this kind of habit, and be more at the present time. Simple one; when you are eating, stop watching TV or looking at your phone. Just observe what you are doing at the moment; spoon your food, chewing, swallowing, observing what your body doing in every single moment. Treasure the moment. This also applies to many other activities, and can help your body and mind to relax. 

After you are able to practice on physical activity, then we can move one step higher to our thought. We take a short period of time, everyday, can be as often as possible, asking again. Where am I? What am I doing now? What do I feel at the moment? Just ask, observe, and acknowledge what's your feeling at the current moment. These are the main keys. Do you know, this simple stuff, actually already called a simple meditation. You've already trained your mind by doing this. 

Next question, what are the benefits? You will not be drowned and "killed" by your own feeling, and in the end you will become happier. In example, you are feeling terrible. Dig in more why do you feel so, turns out you feel helpless. Dig deeper, why? You are angry, or upset, or could be just simply feel bored. Then please realize this one thing, any feeling you have at the moment, it too, will pass. Especially for anger, please train yourself to notice when you are angry, this will prevent you from doing things you will regret later. 

For me myself, I do still feel angry, upset,or sad from time to time. But, the frequency is reduced, and the duration of those negative feelings also become shorter. I become more able to control myself from the unwholesome feelings and thoughts, and here I am easily become more happy and treasure every moment I have. Still a long way to go for a better me, but every step counts!

Long story short, being drowned by the feeling doesn't help you find the solution of your problem. Instead, by acknowledging it, your mind become clear and you become rational enough to find the solution. And again, don't forget the first rule, always be grateful :) 

Cheers!

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!

Why doing good matters?

I had a very interesting conversation with my colleagues today, it's about spiritual thought. Well, I always love to indulge in this topics. What is the take home moral from our discussion? I will share it with you guys. 

Do good. It matters. Why? 

First (and the most important thing), it makes you feel happy, joyful, and peaceful. Who doesn't feel good after doing kind thing? It is even better when you do a good thing with full awareness, with a good intention. Sounds complicated? Not really. For example, you give your seat to needy people (pregnant woman, elderly, disabled person), you are aware that they need the seat more than you, and because of that you give it. As simple as that, you need to be aware of your own feeling and your own action. Trust me, it really matters :)

Second, you help to relieve one people's suffering, or at least you make them feel good. Who knows your kind action is the only good thing that happens to them on that day? Who knows your kind action will brighten up their whole day? One kind action per day for everyone, imagine how the world will be? It will be a more cheerful world!

Oh yeah, please note this. Smile more. Smile when you help people, it is like a bonus. Smile from your heart. I really feel happy when I smile often. Think about this, you usually smile when you are happy, right? How about we change it, even if you are not in a super happy mood, smile. Your smile can even change your own mood. It even better for other people to see it. Smile to stranger, smile to people who have eye contact with you. :) 

Well, then came this question from my colleague, common things that happen to most of us. We don't commit crimes, we don't do evil things, but nor we do very good things. It's like "neutral". What is the example? You walk down the street, very tired after work, and you see something drop from one's pocket. You just walk pass by it without any meaningful thought. Yes, like robots. I personally think we are human but often act more like robots. 

Her question is, how is this count? Well, my answer is this. If we spend our life like that, yes we don't seed a bad kamma, but nor we seed a good kamma. So we only now using up all our good kamma saving. Everyone knows, no matter how rich one person is, if he only use up his money without working, one day it will finish. It's the same for this. 

At the end of the day, I just want to say don't waste every single time of your life. Have good thoughts, speak good words, and do good things. Everyone can do good things, no excuse :)