“Happiness is a contagion which could lead to viral happiness and smiles and actually create peace all around you.” ~jts
Everything in our life is a choice and how we choose determines how we see our life.
Are you happy?
Or, do you wake in the morning and wonder “What’s going to go wrong today?” Do you fear that things that haven’t happened yet will? Do you feel that something bad is going to happen to you, and you don’t even have any reason to feel that way, beyond an offhand comment you heard or a news reporting the radio?
Psychologists refer to F.E.A.R as an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. I love that. It amazes me how often we fall into this mode of thinking, me included. We really limit ourselves when we allow some future “maybe”may occur for us, bad or good, and that our future is totally out of our control. The truth is that most of the things that happen to us are a product of our thinking. If we think the world is basically a dangerous and unloving place, that is what we tend to see. If we believe the world is basically a good and safe place to live, this is what we tend to see.
Can we control everything that happens to us? No. Most of the things that aren’t under our control are remote occurrences and almost silly to think about. The chances of your house burning down, or getting into an accident or most other things are so small that they really are False Evidence Appearing Real. Something like a bombing is astronomically small. They are also external things to us.
Our real control is in our day to day lives, our personal choices. We have virtually 100% control over those. How we eat. Is it healthy? How we spend our money. Do we choose frivolous things we’ll never use? In business, do we make informed choices, or do we see a resurgence of the “pet rock” or “Beanie Babies?”
There are many benefits of choosing to be happy. The first is that smiling not only makes us feel better, it also helps cheer others up. Smiling is contagious. Happiness is a contagion which could lead to viral happiness and smiles and actually create peace all around you. Imagine how much more you might attract into your life by just changing your primary thought to being happy when you wake up n the morning.
I have always, as long as I can remember, woke up and greeted the dawn with a hearty in-breath, a big smile and, most of the time, a statement to the sun, of how grand life is and how blessed I am to be a part of it! I also intentionally interact with people in public and give them a glance and a smile, and sometimes even a quick greeting, if they actually make eye contact with me. In small towns people are more willing to engage you, than they are in the “big city.”
Still, all in all, being happy leads to you wanting to take better care of your body, mind and spirit. Leaving out any one of these things can lead to you, or me, from being in harmony with our own self and lead us into that quagmire of unhappiness and a pronounced frown.
Did you know it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown. That alone is a good reason to smile.
~revjim
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As I sit here, having just completed God knows how many Sunday Meditations as Spirit Education, I continue to be immersed in Rev’s Christies Snow and Jack Fowler’s album, Melt into Nothingness. It seems to keep time to my heart and ground me to earth and spirit at the same time. It is in these melodic sounds of the Native American flute that I lose myself in the Divine. How could it be otherwise? 
