The Smiling Attitude
How to live in the happy zone all-day long
They say “when life gives you lemons, make a lemonade”, but it’s more easily said than done. Life is a tough path. When we are little children we just want to play all day long. We get easily excited and we laugh out loud at least ten times per day. As we grow older, responsibilities come and wash away all these carefree moments. Is this normal? Maybe yes, since it happens to everyone. Is this natural? I can debate it’s not! We are human beings and life should be all about evolving; evolving to a continuously better self.
All the people I know — with the exception of the ones younger than 12 years old — spend their whole day running around a million things that need to be done, groaning for the damn day that only has 24 hours, checking other people’s “shiny” life in social media and complaining because they always want something that life hasn’t offered them yet.
The process is the same irrespectively of socioeconomic status. There is always someone who has more than you; someone whose life you envy and someone else you want to be. I call this LACK OF GRATITUDE. Life is a gift we were offered and instead of enjoying it, we waste numerous hours going through negative feelings.
Where am I going with all these?
WE NEED TO START SMILING AGAIN.
When was the last time that you smiled? The last time that you felt happy? When I ask people these questions, normally I get answers like “when I had my baby, when I got promoted, when I fell in love”. These are perfectly fine answers. The only problem is that they represent just a tiny fraction of your time on earth. Is it possible to live continuously in a pink bubble? I SAY A BIG YES. Please don’t give me the argument that “we can appreciate the happy moments only if we have gone through sorrow”. Sorry I don’t buy into this anymore.
Let me share with you the 3 things that have changed my attitude towards life.
1. START DOING NEW THINGS
Evolution doesn’t come with stagnation. Same goes for happiness. Our brain is supposed to produce serotonin upon new stimulus. Staying inactive is the perfect recipe for depression. As young children, we go through an intense period of new discoveries. We discover the world and we are super-thrilled doing so. As adults, we steadily reduce the number of new things in our life. It’s so disappointing. There are millions of things we can try, millions of new things we can learn and instead, we select the comfort of doing nothing. It’s so simple. Start indulging into new endeavors and see yourself blooming.
2. CELEBRATE HUMAN INTERACTION
Happiness is not an individual thing. We cannot find the key of life alone and we were not born to be alone. Recently I started taking very seriously every single interaction I have with other people throughout my day. I started being an active listener; by active, I mean really pay attention of what the needs of the other person are. If you set as an objective to give out joy, the universe will start sending joy back to you. Making other people happy or at least smiling, is very simple. A kind word, a nice compliment or just an offer to provide help. It’s called Caring. Start paying attention to all these moments and you will discover a whole new world of fulfilling sensations.
3. COMPROMISE. NOT.
Life is short and honestly there is no time to waste. Staying in a job, in a relationship or a situation where you don’t feel well is just not the way forward. The moment someone challenges you on this, you tend to become defensive. It’s irrational. We can come up with a ton of excuses to justify why we stay somewhere without joy, when we could spend that energy in creating a new reality for ourselves. Happiness is a matter of decision and ONLY YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for your own path.
Start implementing the above as of tomorrow and for one week. No pre-work needed. Just wake up tomorrow to a new attitude towards life. I call this the “Smiling Attitude”. It’s feasible. We just need to rewire the way we see things and then magic will follow.
Have a fabulous smiling week!
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Photo credits: pixabay.com
