Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Kane — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:25:47 GMT

Another way to define happiness is a state of mind which is at peace. The more we acquaint our mind with virtue such as love, compassion, giving and so forth, the more peace and hence happiness we experience. Delusions such as anger, jealousy, attachment and so forth function to destroy peaceful minds. When peaceful and happy, one can handle difficulties with a stable mind and be an example and of benefit to others. Meditation is an effective way to acquaint ones mind with virtue. First, develop analytical meditation by pondering a situation that gives rise to a special feeling of love for example. Once the feeling is strong, do placement meditaion by concentrating closely on that feeling. If it is lost, revert to analytical meditation and then back to placement meditation as many times as necessary. One can practice all day even while working simply by keeping beneficial intention as the foundation of every action. Think of it as an operating system like how Windows is the foundation of all the applications (actions) the run on a PC.

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

halcyon — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:43:01 GMT

Here's a fitting quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne about happiness:

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

In other words, happiness is a by-product, not something you can acquire at will.

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Addison — Wed, 30 May 2007 06:17:37 GMT

This strikes me as a very Buddhist approach.

Many of the elements Gary mentions: compassion; focussing attention; self-mastery; self awareness; understanding happiness as something manifest internally rather than externally -- are all very much embodied in my understanding traditional Buddhist philosophy. So anyone who finds this approach useful (as I do), might want to consider looking into Buddhism, which has been teaching and refining similar ideas for centuries.

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Balance52 — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:52:32 GMT

First of all: DR. MERCOLA thank you so much for sharing all this life changing info. Simply put:: I am praying for more physicians like you who want to change the world that it is a better place for all of us. This is just so responsible, honest thinking and action that I truly admire and love. Now my comment on happiness: There cannot be happiness, contentment, joy, and fulfillment in life without a mission that is willing to serve mankind and creator. For me personally there is no happiness without a spiritual connection with my creator who has made our world so beautiful. I had many difficult situations in my life, however they contributed to my growth, because I chose so. Doing the will of our creator is my mission and whatever a new day brings: I am ready and I love life, and I admire its miracles every day. I would like to ask for help: Does anyone know affordable online studies in regard to air quality? I worked in nursing homes and in a hospital, and I definitely have observed that the air quality is often in the hands of the cleaning personnel, sometimes they are responsible often they are not, and they spray as they go, and never read the labels how much they should spray. We all have to breathe and as far as I know lung diseases are number one - and it is not just the smoking. It is much more complex. Thank you so much for your thoughts. Balance52

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

SambaShaker — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:29:21 GMT

Happiness is like a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp," but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

For your great passion in helping others, Thank you Dr. Mercola!

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Witch Doctor — Tue, 29 May 2007 20:41:17 GMT

For responsible adults, happiness is the result of hard work and accomplishment, good habits and good decisions. We think, we act, and we feel correspondingly. When one continually seeks happiness for its own sake, they are seeking and not accomplishing, which runs against our human evolution, human nature, and animal nature.

I always laugh at Supertramp's The Logical Song
“And all the birds in the trees
Well they´d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away
To teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible ,practical”
Well think again - the happy birds ARE being sensible, logical, practical. Every bird has to find its own food, feed its young, build its own shelter, constantly watch for predators, deal with the weather, fly south for the winter and back, or store up food for the winter, or work extra hard to find food in the winter. Even it's "happy singing" is often mating behavior, signalling danger or whatever. Everything they do is logical, rational, sensible and they work very hard and accomplish much. Could you imagine what would happen to the bird if it decided "to hell with all this hard work, I'll just meditate and be happy"? And this is true for all animals, man included.

Witch Doctor wishes you plenty of hard work and accomplishments so you can be happy all the way along.

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Lynn46 — Tue, 29 May 2007 19:06:52 GMT

Fellow readers:
For those of you who need reinforcement of the concept that positive thoughts create a healthy body and mind, or if you need help climbing out a depressive episode in your life (especially if you have faced, or are currently facing, a major health challenge), I highly recommend the following book:

Your Body Believes Every Word You Say: The Language of the Body/Mind Collection
by Barbara Hoberman Levine
Copyright 2000
ISBN: 0-88331-219-0

You can find this book at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.

One interesting thing I learned to change is to suppress the sometimes random unnecessarily negative thoughts like "I hate my life today." Yes, I really did used to have this thought on a fairly regular basis. Now, I think the thought, "I am glad to be alive and in possession of all my faculties." Of course, it took a major health crisis to precipitate my change of attitude. ;-) I survived the crisis relatively intact and am very happy about it.

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

LENZKESR — Tue, 29 May 2007 15:24:51 GMT

Just came back from Mexico where I joined my sons Christian group and built a house over the Memorial day week-end. Happiness is being in America and truly understanding how fortunate we are! Every day is a blessing when you do for someone else!

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Zambini — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:17:08 GMT

Wow, great article Dr. Mercola. Thanks for sharing it with us! Attention is very important.

I loved the story about driving his dad to the chiropractor. It was a great example! I try to do that when driving - remember that the person may hurt, or have something fragile they are driving with. But, I still have a hard time with sightseers. I live 30 minutes from the closest anything, on winding twisty, scenic, lake country roads. Starting in spring and heading to late fall, we have sightseers clogging the roads adding a lot of time to our drive. I just wish they would pull over to look at the lake instead of driving by it at 1/2 the speed limit. I still need to figure out a way to "positive" that. Any help is appreciated!

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Kristina9779 — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:20:46 GMT

I agree with believing in positive thinking. Why? There are so many motivators in this world, such as Zig Ziggler, Anthony Robbins, and Joel Osteen. They are all good with motivation and the way you think. Though I recently was given the new motivational and positive thinking DVD called "THE SECRET," which was on Oprah Winfrey, not to long ago. It's not only motivational, it helps with everyday life issuses, thinking, finances, health, relationships, weight, and everything that is going on in your life that you can change, just by changing your thinking.
Some people believe in motivation, self-help, and positive thinking, and some believe we can just do it on our own without help. They don't understand that a person has been through their life with abuse or alcohol or someone dying or just something in their life, where they need extra help to deal with healing, having a better life, means of personal growth, trust, forgive, release, let go of, and how to think positive.

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

success4hannah — Tue, 29 May 2007 08:53:45 GMT

Excellent post, Dr Mercola. I believe that we are what we think. I know others say you are what you eat, but you have to think about it first, no?

Hannah

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Bridestein — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:46:01 GMT

This makes me happy ^_^

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/05/photo_of_the_da_13.html

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Elton — Thu, 17 May 2007 14:54:23 GMT

A friend of mine says that when we think negatively, our body responds by producing negative chemicals that can swiftly bring our death. But when we think positively -- thoughts of life -- our body produces good chemicals. It's awesome that the medical profession knows about this.

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Bryan - oz4caster — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:32:46 GMT

Here's some happy news : )

re: Interesting Thoughts About the Pursuit of Happiness

Josh Rubin — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:04:31 GMT

"In solitude, we are least alone."
-OSHO