Yes, you can be happy!

I checked my e-mail and most of my readers requested for more excerpts from Andrew Matthews’ Happiness in a Nutshell. Here they are:

• For the world to treat you well, you have to treat yourself well. How can you feel like a mover and shaker when you have holes in your underwear?

It’s the same as loving oneself first so you have the capacity to love another.

Respect yourself and when others see that you value yourself, they will do the same.

Treat yourself well and others will treat you well.

• Because we always attract learning experiences we need, we often attract what we fear.

It’s life’s way of encouraging us to grow.

The only way to beat fear is to face it.

That’s right. The only way to stop being afraid of something is to face it head on with eyes wide open. For all you know, when you do, you’ll find out there was no reason for your fear at all.

• Start anywhere you can.

• Give your best shot to whatever is in front of you and opportunity will begin to find you. It’s called developing a reputation.

Yes, we should always give our best to anything we do. It’s the only way to get the best.

• To see things differently, you don’t need will power, self-confidence, or brain surgery.

You just need to think the unfamiliar.

Your beliefs determine your quality of life.

• We are here to learn lessons and the world is our teacher.

When we fail to learn a lesson, we get to take it again... and again!

Once we have learned the lesson, we move to the next one.

And we never run out of lessons.

Don’t stop until you get it.

• The question is always: What are you doing with what you have?

While the answer is "not much," nothing gets better.

The universe rewards effort, not excuses.

I remember having difficulty in Math when I was in fourth year high school. In the third quarter I got a 74 on my report card.

I know I would still have difficulty but I tried really hard. Reciting as much as I possibly could, spending hours reviewing. Not all my quizzes were perfect but my teacher saw my efforts. I didn’t get such a high grade in my fourth quarterly exams, but I passed. My grade went up by seven points. Effort is the key.

• If you don’t know what you like doing, maybe you stopped listening years ago.

Many of us become different people in order to please everyone.

Why do you think so many students shift courses after being in one for many years? Because they realize they can’t live pleasing other people.

You need to do what will make your heart happy. We will live with the decisions we make, wrong or right. But at least it is your decision. Yours and yours alone. No one to blame.

• The law of the seed: Effort and Patience=Results.

You reap your harvest after you do the work.

• The balance in your bankbook is not the measure of your abundance.

Abundance is what you’ve been blessed with in life. Money is not a measure of how much you have in your life.

It’s what you do with your life, how you live it that makes you rich.

• To find, you have to seek.

If you have lost your life’s direction, you probably won’t find it between drinks at the local bar.

Give yourself a break, give yourself some time and space to examine what counts for you.

I’ve always believed in following one’s heart. Search deep within and listen to where it wants to lead you and take it from there.

Sometimes with so much going around, with the difficulties we face, we lose ourselves along the way somehow.

We need to stop, breathe, find time to look for our way back again.

When I feel lost at times, and I do, I quiet myself, clear my mind of everything and listen only to my heartbeat.

After a while I know where I am. My heart tells me where I need to go. It shows me my way home.

I always go with how I feel. It’s the only way I can be honest with myself, the only way I find myself again.

Sometimes we say it is difficult to be happy in a world like ours, but it is not impossible.

It starts with us, within us.

Let us not be afraid to live our lives to the fullest.

Never be afraid to wake up and witness what each day will bring us.

Life is meant to be lived, not avoided, not feared.

Embrace everything that comes your way, even if it sometimes brings you pain.

Learn from lessons that come your way. Open your heart. Allow yourself to be affected in every way. It’s the only way to experience true happiness.

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E-mail me at babyjakster@yahoo.com