10 Tips For A Happier Life

I spend quite a few of my afternoons in Follett's Intellectual Property bookstore going through books and magazines and trying to catch up with my reading. As of today I stumbled upon a very simple article in a magazine and would like to share it with the readers of my blog.

10 Tips For A Happier Life
1. Don’t worry
Worry is the least productive of all human activities and thoughts….

2. Don’t let needless fears preoccupy your life…
Most of things we fear never happen!!!

3. Don’t hold grudges…
That is one of the biggest and most unnecessary weights we carry through our lives..

4. Take on one problem at a time
It’s the only way to handle things anyway..one by one..

5. Don’t take your problems to bed with you.
They are bad and unhealthy companions for good natural sleep and rest…

6. Don’t take on the problems of other people..
They are better equipped to handle their own problems than you are..

7. Don’t live in the past.
It will always be there in your memories to enjoy..but don’t cling to it. Concentrate on what is happening right now in your life..and you will be happy in the present also..not just the past.

8. Be a good listener.
It is only when one listens..that one gets and learns ideas different from ones own…

9. Do not let frustration ruin and rule your life…
Self pity more than anything..interferes with positive actions..with moving forwards in our lives.

10. Count your blessings…
Don’t even forget the smallest blessings .. As many small blessings add up to large ones…

Looking at the 10 tips here. How do you rank yourself for each one on a scale of 10? The 10 tips given are usually just common sense and I am sure most of you will know about them, but the question is, how many of us really do try to apply the 10 tips to our lives?

Personally I feel that I room to improve on all 10 tips, especially on tip no 7 and 9 as I tend to think about stuff like, eg the bad races I had in the past, bad things that happened before too much. Its even worse when most of the time a lot of these things happens without any reason (example: train 20hrs a week, feeling fit, go to a race and perform sub par..why??).

At the same time if the past was successful, let us not dwell on that success too much too and work hard for future successes.

In the end if we continue living like this, we will run the race of life with so much extra weight attached to our back that shoudnt be there. Imagine how much smoother and faster one's life would be without the extra needless burdens placed on your ownself by yourself!

Being an endurance athlete, I always talk about the ideal weight that I will want where I shed off the extra 4-5 pounds of fat and gain more strength and power (muscle) to compete. Looking at it now from a mental point of few, I shall also have to shed off a few 'pounds' of 'fat' in my head in order to ensure that I will be able to run the race of life in a efficient and smooth manner, in the process of shedding that few 'pounds' mentally I will also get stronger and gain more power to get through the obstacles and the race of life easier (but hopefully not too fast as I dont want to die too soon! ) =)

Always remember, the present is parent of the future and child of the past. However the present will also someday become the past. While there is nothing we can do about the past, we can secure our future and our past of tomorrow by taking care of the present and not let it slip by us!

When you look forward, you may not understand the things that have happened to you, but when you keep on moving forward, eventually you will see, looking backward, that everything, your successes and failures, your good and bad circumstances, will somehow connect for the best. As steve jobs said in his commencement speech for stanford students in 2005 " you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." We have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in our future and have the belief that somehow everything will work out in the best possible way for us!

To all my friends and readers out there, how many of the 10 tips have you applied in your life today?? Think about it

"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory" Someone once said how precisely true that is for my case and people who share the same problem as me!

Be Happy and if you have read this far, thanks for reading!
Yuen

P/s: I swear publishing articles like this that hopefully will reach you people out there to help you guys out with your lives really helps take the stress and frustration out of certain days in my life! I also hope you guys will put your thoughts on how you rank in the 10tips or so on (eg thoughtful words, and diff views on happiness etc etc) in the comments part as everyone's view is welcome and will surely be refreshing! Would be great if you guys could let me know what else I need to work on too!