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Simply Happiness: A Short and Practical Guide to Maintaining a Happy and Contented Life
Simply Happiness: A Short and Practical Guide to Maintaining a Happy and Contented Life
Simply Happiness: A Short and Practical Guide to Maintaining a Happy and Contented Life
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Simply Happiness: A Short and Practical Guide to Maintaining a Happy and Contented Life

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What is happiness?

True happiness isn’t permanent positivity; it’s fluid with many subtle levels and allows full emotional expression. It’s a skill to be practised – not attained.

Life is full of ups and downs, but wouldn’t it be great if we could maintain a constant level of happiness and contentment – no matter what is happening around us?

Simply Happiness is a practical guide that shows you how to improve your happiness in 12 easy steps. It’s a concise and easy read which summarises and distils knowledge from ancient philosophies and wisdom, as well as modern evidence-based happiness research.

The author’s journey into happiness started as a personal project exploring the what, why and how of happiness, which then blossomed into a guide that everyone can benefit from. The book is full of practical examples of how this 12-step approach can be easily implemented in your life for lasting impact.

Happiness is contagious – by improving your own happiness you cannot help but share it with those around you. As the ancient prayer says – May All Be Happy.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 12, 2018
ISBN9781925814217
Simply Happiness: A Short and Practical Guide to Maintaining a Happy and Contented Life
Author

Jen Matthews

Jen has lived in Sydney, Australia for most of her life with part of her 20’s living and working in Asia. Starting life in the corporate world she has gradually changed her focus towards philosophy, spirituality, psychology and art. A lover of knowledge and expanding experiences, Jen became an accidental author when trying to answer her own questions about life.

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    Book preview

    Simply Happiness - Jen Matthews

    Simply

    Happiness

    A Short and

    Practical Guide to Maintaining a Happy and Contented Life

    JEN MATTHEWS

    This is an IndieMosh book

    brought to you by MoshPit Publishing

    an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

    PO BOX 147

    Hazelbrook NSW 2779

    https://www.indiemosh.com.au/

    Copyright 2018 © Jen Matthews

    All rights reserved

    Licence Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

    No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

    Disclaimer

    Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

    For my loves

    Peter, Joshua, William and Mia.

    May ALL be happy

    Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

    – Aristotle

    Introduction

    I think what many of us are seeking is a way of life where we can maintain a constant level of contentment, no matter the changing conditions around us. Happiness for me means ease, comfort, contentment, peace, joy, fun, balance and love. It is not a fixed state of excitement and positivity but rather it is fluid with many subtle levels. I believe we each have an individual responsibility to determine what makes us happy and to cultivate that happiness for the good of all.

    My aim in writing this book is to offer an easy and concise set of steps to improve happiness and to help you become a naturally happy thinker. This is a practical guide, providing basic concepts and ideas to experiment with and incorporate into everyday life.

    Having read extensively from philosophic, religious and scientific sources, I sought to distil the common methods used by these disciplines to promote happiness. If something sparks your interest, there are plenty of references at the end of the book for a more in-depth analysis.

    I hope you enjoy it!

    The Why and What of Happiness

    Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

    – Alfred D. Souza

    Firstly, why do we want to become happier?

    We seek happiness, as it’s an opening and expanding emotion. In contrast, unhappiness is closing and contracting. Happiness opens you up to the world; your awareness expands to see the bigger picture. This increases flexibility, awareness, creativity and wisdom. Being more open and receptive to the world makes us more socially connected, resilient and healthier. Happiness begets happiness, leading to an open, inclusive and fuller life.

    By improving our own happiness, we can improve the happiness of those around us; it is contagious[1]. This gives us an opportunity, as Gandhi said, ‘to be the change that we wish to see in the world’ and to make the world a happier place.

    Happiness is the cause and success is the effect, not the reverse. The reason for this is that when we are happier we are more creative, more motivated, form better relationships and are physically healthier – resulting in a more rewarding life.

    Secondly, what is and what isn’t true happiness?

    People often think happiness is searching for a constant giddy ‘high’, rather than long-term contentment.

    Happiness is:

    · A stable state of contentment and ease

    · An internal focus

    · A skill that can be practiced, cultivated and maintained

    · A journey of continual practice and refinement – the potential to be happy or unhappy is available to us moment by moment

    Achieving durable happiness as a way of being is a skill.

    – Matthieu Ricard

    Happiness is not:

    · Dependent on external conditions such as wealth, health, status or other people

    · A perpetual state of ecstatic joy

    · A destination – we do not arrive at a permanent state of happiness but continually make choices in each moment to maintain our happiness

    We cannot always control the world around us but we can control how we react to it. The search for happiness centres on internal, not external control or self-mastery. To find real happiness we cannot be caught up in the external events that surround us. Instead, we must focus on refining our internal interpretation of these events. This results in a stable level of contentment in which events arise and fall.

    Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstance.

    – Benjamin Franklin

    I believe happiness is our natural basic state. Unhappiness occurs when our minds ‘add on’ to our experiences, judging them as either good or bad, desired or undesired. We obscure our happiness with these automatic or unconscious judgements. So, in order to allow happiness to occur, we must make a conscious effort to remove the cover of judgement from how we see the world.

    It isn’t the things themselves that disturb people, but the judgements that they form about them.

    – Epictetus

    Think of happiness as a light bulb and judgements as dust. As layers of dust dim the light from the bulb, judgements do the same to our happiness. Eventually the dust is so thick that it’s hard to see the light at all. When we become aware of these judgements, we can then clean the dust off and let the light shine brightly again.

    The Buddhist parable, The Arrow illustrates how our judgements cloud our experience of the

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