When one thinks of happiness, it’s interesting to think about “where” in oneself it happens. Does happiness happen in one’s elbow, knees, wrists, kidneys, liver, etc? Of course it does not! Rather, happiness happens in one’s mind.
But then, one can ask, what is the mind? To me, the mind is essentially a collection of flowing thoughts. Every waking moment, one is always “thinking”, constantly creating a myriad of thoughts. It’s what makes one “conscious” and, in many ways, it makes one human.
Ultimately, the thousands of thoughts in one’s mind interact to determine how happy one is at that moment. Thoughts are incredibly powerful in how they can influence one’s state of happiness. Some thoughts are “helpful” for one’s happiness, and some are “unhelpful” for one’s happiness.
If one is to be happy, one needs to think in ways that are helpful. The main aim of Happy Thinking is to help one change unhelpful thoughts to helpful thoughts. A good starting point would be to understand what helpful and unhelpful thoughts are. I will use a simple example to help you understand the concept.
Let us imagine that two people are working for a very good company. This golden company pays good salaries and gives a lot of luxurious perks. Both these people are, unsurprisingly, very happy.
But now imagine that things go wrong with this company. Unfortunately, the management makes some very poor business decisions, and the company loses money. Very soon, despite heroic efforts, the once wonderful company goes bankrupt. With no money to continue operating, our two workers have been told that they no longer have jobs and they need to leave immediately. Both these people are now in a very unfortunate situation where they have suddenly lost their generous salaries and perks.
When facing this stressful situation, let’s imagine that the two people in our scenario think differently of each other.
One of them has thoughts such as, “Well, that was a great job, but that is no more. There is no point in thinking of what I have lost. Instead, I need to start job hunting to pay my household bills.”
On the other hand, the other person has thoughts such as, “How terrible! Bad things happen only to me. I will never get another job. There is no point trying as the world is useless.”
Both people have to face the same problem, but each has a markedly different way of “thinking” when dealing with the problem.
The first person has thoughts that are positive, as they do not make the person’s sadness worse. Rather, this person’s helpful thoughts keep his or her mind in a state where it can effectively think about potential solutions. This person’s positive outlook will help the person move on and ultimately find a replacement job. Such thoughts help the person be as happy as possible given the circumstances, and are what I would call “helpful thoughts”.
On the other hand, the second person’s thoughts make a bad situation worse. This person may well spiral into depression, which itself may make finding another job difficult. Such thoughts, which make a person feel worse and less able to solve problems, are what I call ”unhelpful thoughts”.
Despite facing the same stress, one person’s way of thinking made him or her remain relatively happy, while the other person’s way of thinking made that person unhappy. Two different outcomes, just by thinking differently.
Clearly, it would be desirable to avoid unhelpful ways of thinking. Unfortunately, over time, one may develop unhelpful ways of thinking without even realising it, and this can unnecessarily cause one to be unhappy. On this website, I will describe common unhelpful thoughts that people have. This will help you to recognise such thoughts when they occur in your mind.
I will also explain to you various mental techniques that you can use to change unhelpful thoughts to helpful ones. The techniques that I will share with you are very practical so that you can use them daily to manage your thoughts.
In addition to the above, I will also share with you wisdom. You and I are not the first people to search for happiness. Many of our ancestors have had the same desire for happiness that we have, and they have left a lot of wisdom for us. I will share with you such wisdom taken from various modern and ancient sources. This could help you in your journey of finding happiness.
In essence, recognising unhelpful thoughts, changing them, and making use of wisdom are the ingredients of Happy Thinking. Mixing these ingredients will help you find the happiness you are looking for.
