How to be happy alone this year is the same as it was last year and will be next year. There are a few simple things we need to do to be happy. It’s not hard once we practice them. I’ve written several articles about happiness and they all apply now more than ever. How to be happy alone is also the key to being happy with other people. Happiness must first sprout out of us like a blooming flower before we can help in the happiness of others. After-all, we cannot give what we ourselves do not have.
Quotes About Being Happy
I love quotes about being happy. By themselves they don’t make me happy, but they can inspire me to take the actions that will make me happy. So, with that, let me share with you some of my favorite quotes about being happy.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
-Mahatma GandhiEveryone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
– Leo TolstoyFor every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
-Ralph Waldo EmersonThe grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
– Joseph AddisonTo like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.
– Bertrand RussellThousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
-BuddhaIf one thinks that one is happy, that is enough to be happy.
– Madame de la FayettePleasures are more safely postponed than virtues…greater loss is suffered by missing an opportunity of doing good, than an hour of giddy frolic and noisy merriment.
– Samuel JohnsonHappiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.
-ZhuangziWork on yourself and you will draw to you what you are. Visualize the relationship you want and picture it clearly.
– Deepak Chopra
There are so many more excellent quotes. One day I’ll make a post of just quotes about being happy.
How to be Happy Alone
There was a time in my life when I was quite depressed. A relationship failed. A business failed. I was alone in a city where I didn’t have many friends. My family was many hours away. It was easy to sit in my split-level house in quiet desperation. One day I was laying on the bed looking out the frosted window. It was a cold, grey, and rainy day outside. Ice had formed on the tree limbs from the freezing evening before. I didn’t want to be out in such bad weather. I looked intently upon that tree. My mind focused on the tree and every little rain drop that rolled down the limb and fell to the earth. I must have studied it for a good hour. Then it hit me.
In an instant, while looking at the ice on the tree, wallowing in my own self-pity, I saw beauty that I never understood before. In a moment of revelation, thoughts flooded my mind that seasons come and go. Good and bad times come in our lives. All this time I was like everyone else who saw grey, cold, and rainy days as “bad” weather, but now I understood how important that day was for the trees, grass, and plants. They needed the rain. The cold weather kills off bad stuff and allows for the beautiful colors we see every Spring. Without knowing it, laying there on my bed, I was doing a form of meditation. I reaped the rewards of meditation without even knowing it. That revelation put a smile on my face. Where I once was feeling sad, I was now happy.
For that moment I was enlightened with knowledge that improved my disposition. Because of that event, my life changed forever. I now saw beauty where I previously saw as ugly and called bad.
I wrote an article that happiness and well-being are within us. Please read it. It details the barriers to happiness as well as the keys to happiness. It works whether you are alone or in a family with a dozen kids. If you want to know how to be happy alone with yourself, this article will give you what you need to be happy. This is not just my experiences, but that of many happiness experts, and those who have been writing about happiness for a very long time.
Next, I encourage you to live a life in constant gratitude. In this article I detail how important it is to be thankful for everything we have in our life, good and bad. As I write this I am recovering from a very bad sprained ankle. I rolled it over the 2014 Christmas holidays playing tennis with my oldest brother. It’s a nasty sprain that even now after three weeks of healing, I still can’t walk down a flight of stairs without taking them both feet on each step. While this is a big inconvenience, I am very thankful for it. It is a painful reminder to me that I am not as indestructible as I think I am, and I need to make some changes in how I live my life. I encourage you to wake up each morning thankful for something different in your life. As you go to bed each night, once again, be grateful for everything that happened in the day and look to what can be learned from the day.
Lastly, I wish for you to experience inspiration similar to what I experienced that cold, grey, rainy day many years ago. Take time every day for yourself and learn how to meditate properly for happiness. Learning how to be happy alone starts with you understanding yourself. That only comes when you spend time with yourself in quiet meditation. It is an amazing experience I try to do every single day. I cannot convey how important this is to happiness. For those who hold religious beliefs, prayer is often described as time to worship and thank God. Meditation is a time to listen. Religious or not, spiritual or not, meditation is a tried and true key to happiness.
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How to be happy alone comes down to understanding yourself. I strongly encourage you to read the 3 articles above. You can be happy alone. You can be happy with a bunch of other people. The answers are actually within you, if you will take the time to discover them. I am happier today than I have ever been. I still have problems and I still have my ankle to heal. My happiness is not dependent on anyone or any thing. My wish for you is that this year is the happiest year you’ve ever had.