Four Splendid Truths

• First: To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
• Second: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy;  One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• Third: The days are long, but the years are short. (click the link to see my one-minute movie)
• Fourth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.

Gretchen Rubin went on a year-long journey to find out what would make her happy and in turn created a blog and a book we can all live by.  I recently saw author Gretchen Rubin on my beloved ‘The Today Show‘. In June’s  edition of Good Housekeeping, Gretchen is introduced as a new contributing editor.    

  Gretchen’s blog has so much valuable information that I became in awe of all this wonderful wisdom she shares with us and continues thru her blog to keep adding great seeds of truth to make our lives happier.  In my blog  ‘Taking  On A Cause’ I implore my readers to find ways to aid, causes and people who need their help thru donating time or money. I love in Gretchen’s blog that she emphasizes be of service to others and that will make you happy.  Gretchen also states helping others gets your mind off your own problems for a while.  Often in cruel twists of fates the victims and or their families turn their tragedy into helping others. I don’t know if this would be called happiness but I do believe that it brings a peace in helping others avoid the fate that this person and their friends and family have endured. Locally here an example of this would be Nathan Lee of Englewood, Fl. and  his family who are changing the way the 911 emergency response system works. Nathan Lee, has been  instrumental in bringing new laws on how 911 operators are trained  both here in Florida, and now nationally. Nathan does this in honor of his wife Denise Amber Lee . I believe by helping others Nathan is helping himself, his family, and people he will never know.  Helping others in a situation where you can help  others avoid the fate you had to live.gives you a feeling of some control. I have often heard people who seem so unhappy in their lives say they feel they do not have any control of  their lives. Gaining control back is important to gain a way back to happiness in one form  or another .     
http://deniseamberlee.org/
To help support The Denise Amber Lee, foundation please see thet above  link .                                                 

Gretchen has a year plan for you to follow called ‘The Happiness Project’. 

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/start-.html

by going to this link you can start a plan for increasing your own happiness. I hope that this means that you will if not already, by putting in action the second rule of Gretchen’s and that is to help somebody, and by helping others you will help yourself with the reward of being more happy in your life.

Related articles

• The Happiness Project (featured.typepad.com)
• Get Happy! An Interview With Gretchen Rubin, Author Of “The Happiness Project” (breakthrough.com)
• The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (reallyquiteliterally.wordpress.com)
• Set Aside a Specific Time for Something That’s Important to You. (happiness-project.com)
• Cultivate Good Smells (psychologytoday.com)
• Set Aside a Specific Time for Something That’s Important to You. (psychologytoday.com)
• Gretchen Rubin: Balanced Life — Want Some Tools to Boost Happiness? Try the Happiness Project Toolbox (huffingtonpost.com)
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• Be happy (truthwithdoris.wordpress.com)
• Ideas for breaking the habit of being judgmental? Please share! (joyofspa.com)
• Cultivate Good Smells. (happiness-project.com)
• The pursuit of happiness (cbsnews.com)
• A Summary and Review of The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin for Thinking Executives – and Those Who Want to be One (bookstove.com)
• The Happiness Project — the updated paperback edition (boingboing.net)