Understanding

We go through life reacting to situations around us. Our fast paced world dictates that. WE have so many distractions to not allow us to focus on the “ME” in our lives. WE always focus on everything else around us. Our external world is very overwhelming. How do we focus on ourselves without feeling selfish or guilty?  We have to change our mindset. We have to focus on our strengths and eliminate weaknesses; sort out what is causing us a rift between our happiness. All of this is an opinion of mine based on my experience and what I study and observe. You can process my information anyway that makes you comfortable. You can twist it for something that it is not. I have no gain by convincing you to believe either way from left to right. I have only a mission in life is to help you change your perceptions of Happiness.

The mindset I am talking about is a very simple process that takes a lot of hard work. First step is to accept the things you cannot change. How is that done? Well….. If you have no control over the situation or problem then you have no reason to worry about it. All you can do is change your perception towards how you are going to feel about it. Once you decide to accept what cannot be changed in your life, you will need to find out how to quiet your mind. These two steps can be done together.

Sit in a room with no distractions whatsoever and observe what comes to your thoughts. Sort out the thoughts that you cannot change or control at that present moment. Review your thoughts one by one. Eliminate one by one by what you cannot control. If there is a situation that is serious but you cannot handle at the moment your sitting there… don’t think of it. Move on to the next thought or emotion. What you will find out is that everything in life has a priority list. Some situations can be resolved with some work, with the assistance of someone else; some things will be resolved over a long and short period of time.

For the sake of the exercise you are focusing on that specific moment alone in your space, all you can control at the moment in time is quieting your mind. You are there alone in your thoughts and worrying about this or that is not important at the present moment. You will find that sitting and eliminating the thought, for a temporary moment is affordable and possible. The problem will still exist after you are done focusing. All you are doing is removing it from your thought process temporarily. (eventually permanently)

After you have removed 99.9% of what you think is important for your thought processes, you are left with an empty mindset. Fill it up with one thought or memory in your life that made you feel good. In fact think of a moment that made you feel overwhelmingly excited. So excited that you could scream and yell just remembering it. Hold on to that emotion or feeling from that moment and continue to hold it for a couple of minutes. Let it go after a five minutes. Now think of a horrible time or memory, experience in your life where it was so tragic or heartbreaking that thinking about it makes you cry. Hold on to that for five minutes and then let it go.

Now reflect on the two emotions and compare. Which one was easiest to remember? Which one was easier to re-create the emotion or feeling? Most people can remember the negative. For most it takes less time to remember the bad than the good. It takes work to remember a great moment than a negative experience. Once you remember the good moment it is easy to enjoy it. When you capture the negative moment it is hard to maintain the painful emotions you easily remembered.

At the beginning of this post I stated, “The mindset I am talking about is a very simple process that takes a lot of hard work.” This mindset is happiness. It takes work to achieve happiness but once you are there it is effortless. The hard work isn’t at maintaining happiness; the hard work is applied towards how to eliminate the distractions that block our happiness.

I hope my thoughts that I have shared will give you a little help if you are struggling with something. I love all of you and hope you will continue reading. It is all about our mindset.

God Bless.

There is so much to say when you are happy. You want to climb the highest mountain and shout to everyone what they have and are missing. Your enthusiasm is so great and energy level is so high!!! Your soul wants to scream. Sadly there are the majority of people that do not accept this type of openness. We are a very few and far between. I have my weaknesses and my shortcomings. I curse like a marine and drink like an alcoholic. I lose my temper and rant about the silly things and as I am on a rant I start to laugh and realize that the energy I am expending is better suited for laughter instead of anger. We learn as we go. My uncle Fr. Roberto Quinonez was always positive. He was truly happy. He loved people. He served in the jungles of Peru for 18 years serving the poor. Those so called poor that had very little and yet had more than we did. In the jungles they built themselves a paradise. Giant house huts made of bamboo high in the trees. Beautiful rooms and living spaces. The people were amazing. At 15 I had the experience of a lifetime. I could go on about the experience but I would get away from the richness of the lesson I learned. Everyone I met and observed in that country taught me the true meaning of happiness especially my uncle Beto. He was an amazing man. He loved everyone and it was reciprocated tenfold. He gave of himself like no one else I have ever seen at that point in my life other than my Grandmother. A saint! Another story…damn that’s a novel in itself the unselfishness she had for others. She let her own family rob her mattress. The Bank. She kept all of her money there. She always knew who took a dollar here and there. She would tell me and giggle.

Love. My uncle and grandmother gave of themselves truly unconditionally. They loved unconditionally. Very few people know the true definition of that word. I knew of it my whole life and was always on a journey to find that world where everyone was respectful of each other. I always was disappointed in people and situations when I put myself in search of that feeling.

I always tried to mimic the wonderful things my uncle did for people. My temper always got in the way. I was too judgmental. I always figured something was wrong with everyone else but not me. The problem was with me all along and all I need to do was love. I walked away from wonderful friendships because I did not know the word forgiveness. I left beautiful women with huge hearts and purpose in their life and I thought something was wrong with them. I blew off co-workers and acquaintances because I perceived them in attack mode towards me. I had my perceptions all wrong. I still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to loving others and accepting fully the richness of our differences. I was taught a very young age of a man that walked this earth that hated religion and people who judged others, people who did not love one another as equals being connected. He taught the masses to love and more importantly to love and finally he taught them how to love. Basically he was teaching how to love. And yet after all that redundant teaching you would think the masses received the lesson and reciprocated…. he was murdered. He was killed in spite of all the love he showed. In his last breath he begged his father to forgive all those that hurt him. He was a true loving person. He loathed religion and yet his followers created a religion(s) in his name cursing and judging others. Putting fear in the hearts and minds of families and children. Am I upset? No but I am aware that love is the unconditional force that connects all of us through all weather and storm. I struggle with generalizing my love, applying it to everyone and everything. It takes courage to accept and hold dear the human condition. We are all different and are exposed to different environments which dictate our opinions and life’s passions. We all have the opportunity to create anything we want regardless of our experience and challenges. Yet sometimes we choose to justify our fear and failures with our challenges and fears.

We do not have a purpose in our minds because we are so afraid to follow our calling and passion. It is funny it took me just short of 50 years of my life to figure out my dreams and visions were a calling. I thought it was an unattainable thought. It all begins with thought and then a dream. And then the dream turns in to passion. It is all we think about and then we get tired of dreaming and hoping that we pull up our big person pants and take a chance. And then another…we fail over and over until we satisfy one day the burning desire to succeed. Success is measured in my mind by the completeness I feel inside for achieving something I love.

I love helping others. I love helping THAT someone that appreciates themselves and wants to improve. I love helping those people that are tired of looking in the mirror at the waste they created of a human being. And now they want to become more. The only thing standing in their way is their inability to be happy. That is where I and others like me come in. We teach one simple thing. Make a choice to be happy. That’s it. Make a conscious choice to BE happy. Not act happy but BE the essence of happiness. Inside out not outside in. We were given those gifts to overcome as a birthright by our creator. It is physically impossible for us to accept death without a purpose. There are heroes made from purpose and failures. Failures in attempts and purpose in what motivated them to succeed.

Look in the mirror. See a true hero. Be brave and accept Happiness. I tell people we all have a choice to be happy or the opposite. Right now I am pushing 50, overweight, cant breather right, hair is falling out, teeth are grinding and getting smaller, cant cant cant……is a part of my vocabulary more than any time in my life. On the flipside…I have an amazing job. I help some amazing people get through their day because they have to be there to make a living to feed and help support themselves and family. I get to watch everyone start their day sad and then they have to deal with me being silly all day. Hugging and kissing them until they either turn me in to HR or smile. If they smile and then turn me in it was worth it. It has happen. It had purpose to the madness. I also have the privilege of mentoring several individuals on the level of happiness they currently reside in if any at all.I Have been blessed to be called Papa(grandpa) by 6 amazing little boys. I have beautiful children that all make me proud to be their father. I have found someone to stand by me patiently accepting me for who I am one hundred percent non-judgmental and unconditionally loving me. Supporting me when my emotions take over and I become the Jeckyll to my Hyde. Life is funny with loss, you get it back. 

Mentoring happiness is an amazing feeling. I watch people come from crying everyday to learning how to laugh and be happy in any situation. So many emotions run through me when I see progress. All I want is for them to realize that the decision to be happy is their hands. The happiness they crave and hope for is not predicated on external vices and situations. Nor is it reliant on an individual or in an expectation of a circumstance. We have that control to develop our own perceptions as our OWN. It doesn’t take a scientist to figure it out, all it takes is someone to love you and guide you towards a warm hug and encouragement. We can all be that light for anyone. We do not need a license or PHD. All we need is Love. The kind of love that my grandmother uncle Beto and Jesus Christ taught. These wonderful figures in my life were always instrumental in getting me through rough challenges in my life. I am thankful to my family. I am thankful for the brave man on that cross using himself as a purpose to teach us Love. He loved us that much to be THE example. There have been recordings of other amazing prophets, teachers and saints all justified ion their own write as the figure in their life that empowers them. I am not going to sit here and judge what is right from wrong and ask you to change your belief system. That is up to you and your research. If you have not done research start moving.

I am here to give my opinion on how happiness is achieved. I know I was redundant in my articulation of ideas and philosophy…. But I am trying. Who isn’t? Someone HAS to do it. Someone has to give up a little of their time to plant the seeds of a happy philosophy in people’s hearts. I hope I have done that for you. I will be writing more.

I am ranting. If you are a follower of my writings from my previous blog then you’ll understand. I am not going to try and make it pretty. I am going to make it honest.

I love you.

The word happy sounds familiar and doesn’t seem especially philosophical. It expresses a concept called happiness that we assume we understand, at least to some degree. Although it seems so easy, articulating the concept isn’t. In fact, for long as philosophers have been discussing happiness, its definition has been debated.

Happiness is plural. People present happiness in various rubrics and experience it differently. Some find happiness in aims, achievements or acquiring things, others purely on experiences. For one it may mean running barefoot through a dewy grass, for another it’s holding a baby in his arms. Sex can make someone happy, as can a new outfit. Some like monks even experience happiness in the absence of all of these. Each of the above is a valid vision of happiness. Happiness isn’t simple, singular or similar for all. It is perhaps the most complex and subjective term in the English language.

Happiness is changing. People have various conceptions of happiness, and they depend on many factors such as age, gender, region, religion and culture. Jennifer Aaker, a Stanford social psychologist, explains that these conceptions also change from time to time, as they move through their lives. What may seem happy today may not be so tomorrow.

Happiness is paradoxical. For instance, many people commonly equate happiness with fun. Hence, in order to be happy, they believe that their lives need to be full of fun. Unfortunately, this expectation of happiness is never usually realized because always having fun is far from possible; and with the modern society becoming used to more choices and less patience, expectations rise. According to Barry Schwartz, a Swarthmore psychologist, our increasing expectations mean that we are always on a search to appease ourselves. Even if we believe we have the key to happiness within ourselves, our pursuit of it seems to be an external one.

Happiness is shapeless. The beauty of the concept of happiness is that is seems to belong to a virgin fairyland, bleached in nuance and vagueness. This is why the terrain of real life, criss-crossed by pain and beauty and monotony and tears and stress and ideas and eroticism, can have its contours reflected by the shapeless notion of happiness.

The complexity of happiness – with its plural, changing, paradoxical and ambiguous notions – makes it creative fodder, offering endless possibilities to the advertising business. Yet, many use it unthinkingly and often superficially. Happiness as a central theme – with its facets and complexities – deserves more documentation, time, understanding and importance than we credit it. No wonder, Don Draper of Mad Men puts it rightly, ‘Advertising is based on one thing, happiness.

See Praveen Vaidyanathan’s blog at the following link The Complexity of Happiness

Life is so precious. Life is like what a painting is to an artist. So precious. So valuable. So much effort and passion goes into living that we will do anything to keep it. We are so delicate as humans. We are precious. We live for today and yet we do not appreciate. We diminish the importance of the present and expect tomorrow. We are selfish. I love my life today. I am in love with my breath that I take. I see the future up to the next moment. I see happiness and joy. I try with all my strength to defer the uncomfortable situations to tomorrow. Because if I wait until tomorrow to worry and I am not alive I spent today relishing in my joy without distractions. If I make it to tomorrow and have to face that discomfort… chances are that it will work itself out or, my joy will gain strength and I can deal better. I can have more strength to inspire and love the people around me to deal with it together. We are all connected and have to take into consideration everyone that lives those moments with us. We have to encourage and inspire. I have someone to encourage me every day. Thank you my Precious Lord. Thank you my precious Love.

I repeat a lot of the same mumbo jumbo in my blogs. I know that some do not want to read the truth and have their own thinking. I respect that. I respect it to the point of, it is my blog and if they do not want to return then it is what it is. If you return then you are with me in this wonderful journey and we are allies. We can feel positive thoughts together. We can encourage one another with good vibes. We can ask our Lord and Savior to send reminders of our joy and what we are made of. We can remember that wonderful man on the cross many years ago who was the ultimate positive person that walked this earth and tried to show us the secret to life. And we did not see what was obvious. He taught it so simply. His message was very basic. So many generations of so called teachers and smart religious people have distorted the basic message of LOVE. Why? I really do not care why anymore as I spent most of my life worrying about why. Then I read and read. And one day. BAM! I am happy. I feel joy. I love being alive. I can look in the mirror and love the handsome person looking at me. I can be free of my guilt. I can release all of the shame that others have dumped on me without regret of their own. I can be free of the shackles that my environment has brainwashed me with. I can truly be happy. I can fill myself up with this endless joy that I was born with. I want to shout this to everyone starting with you. I love you. Listen up. Lesson number one. Quit your whining.