When I was younger I had a blood disorder that affected my serotonin levels and caused me to be depressed.
At seven years old I would watch cartoons and break out into tears. I felt like I was losing the battle against my emotions.
I thought a lot about what it means to be happy, and how I could be happier despite this chemical imbalance.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever really won this battle of emotions. I still have ups and downs, good days and bad days.
But I’ve realized that when it comes to being happy, the circumstances don’t matter that much. It’s all about your perspective and your mindsets.
So here are the 3 mindsets that we need to be happy.
1) Our Present Does NOT Dictate Our Future
No matter where we are, how we feel, or what we are doing—that doesn’t decide what will happen in our future.
When everything is going wrong in our lives, we’ll have a hard time imagining a hopeful future.
And you aren’t the only person that gets trapped in this feeling of doom and gloom. Impact bias is the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of future feeling states.
When we are depressed we can only assume that we will be depressed forever. We are twenty feet deep in a hole with only a shovel—we feel we can only go further down.
But if we have this mindset instilled within us, we’ll be able to get out eventually.
2) The Past Is A Story, The Future Is An Imagination
If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
But, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.
-Lao Tzu
We spend a lot of time regretting the past, or worrying about the future. But we don’t realize that these things are not exactly what they seem.
Humans are naturally pretty terrible at remember the past. Every time we recall a past memory we are actually remembering the last time we remembered it. In this process we alter the memory.
After years and years, the past is just a collection of completely inaccurate stories we tell ourselves. Some of us tell happy stories, some tell sad stories, but they are all stories.
Don’t base your emotions on the past.
The rest of the time we spend worrying about the future.
We stress about deadlines, awkward conversations, whether we will find love, get the job, and even whether or not we will be happy.
Think about that. We ruin our happiness in the present because we are worrying about whether or not we will be happy in the future.
Humans are bad at correctly recalling the past, and we are also terrible at predicting the future. Every doomsday scenario that plays out in our heads fail to come to pass.
The solution is to not regret the past, but move on, and not worry about the future, but live in the moment.
3) We Don’t NEED A Reason To Be Happy
This is the most important mindset for happiness. If you need a reason to be happy, your happiness can always be taken away.
Happiness is something we should try to cultivate within us. We need to learn to be happy for the sake of being happy.
Material possessions, promotions, friends, relationships, respect—these are all great and should make us happy, but we should never rely on them to be happy.
If we learn to be happy for no reason at all, we’ll be able to keep our happiness no matter what happens around us.
And that’s what we all want right, to be happy?
Words of wisdom there 😉
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Thank you, I am honored you think so!
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good points especially no. 3 that’s really the key!
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I would definitely have to agree. I saved the best for last!
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Truth. Happiness is not a goal; it’s a mindset.
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You are 100% correct. It couldn’t be said in a simpler and more honest way.
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Reblogged this on Galvan Galvan.
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Thank you so much for reblogging this, I appreciate it!
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You deserve it! 🌟
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You know, you’re right. The past is depressing but I don’t have to live there.
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Exactly! Please remember that whenever things get rough. I remind myself of that fact very often.
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Great and important post 😉
I decided to stay happy from I wake up in the morning, no matter how other people are acting, this helped me to come back to life.
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If you make the deliberate decision to be happy, no one can stop you. Keep going!
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Reblogged this on HelpingOthersHelpThemselves.
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Thank you for reblogging this, it means a lot to me!
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This is a wonderful post. I often use the following quote by Theodore Roosevelt that helps with keeping a healthy perspective in life, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” 🙂
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That is an amazing quote. Thank you for sharing and thank you for being so kind! 🙂
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Anytime 🙂
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“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” ― John Lennon
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I have never heard that quote, which is a rare event. Thank you for sharing it here. I’ll definitely be using it in the future.
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Wow! This is amazing! I love the last bullet point, that we should be happy to be happy. There doesn’t need to be a reason.
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I hope you live your life with that point always in mind. It has helped me so often when I’ve felt low. Thank you for stopping by!
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Thank you. this is a good article, but
at some point I had to wonder how people are doing the “altering their stories -thingy “…I have a photographic mind and every memory is stored like on a DVD..with exact quotes and moves of the people included.
I found out that very often people alter their ” videos “…or lets put it simple they LIE to themselves how they treated you or what they have said to you.
Since my early childhood it was quite shocking to me that people lie to themselves by doing the “modification of their story” – thing. I found out that they are often to proud or to ignorant to say just “I am sorry… forgive me .”
For me TRUTH and integrity are the only way to deal with our learning-lessons. If we do not do that, we tend to be stuck in EGO- behaviour and that can block us from realising who we really are our TRUE (higher)SELF.
How can we learn to forgive ourselves, which is a VITAL step for LETTING GO, without being honest to ourselves..?
So it is for me better to deal with the emotional aspect of the (good or bad) experiences and to transform them into higher understanding and Self-compassion, than we might eventually even laugh about what we went through, in the end. 🙂
Many blessings to you
Andreas https://myheartschoices108.wordpress.com/
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You make very good points, but I’m 100% convinced that people are aware that they are “modifying their story.” There have been a lot of studies where people are completely sure that they are not lying and even pass lie detectors with their “modified story.” But, I agree with you completely that we need to face these things head on to really develop ourselves in any meaningful way.
Thank you for sharing this information, I’m sure our readers will enjoy learning from your perspective!
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A smile, one when you least feel it, can turn your day around! 🙂
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I definitely agree!
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Bravo. I hope you don’t mind if I share!
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We don’t mind at all. Please share as often as you would like!
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Reblogged this on Ninasusan.
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Yes, yes, and yes! http://mitchteemley.com/2014/11/06/549/
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Great advice.
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Great post – especially point No3. If your happiness depends on something or someone else then it’s not really yours. Happiness, as they say, really is an inside job! However, can we really expect to be bouncy, squeaky, shiny happy at all times? For those moments when life knocks us off course, I think gratitude is a great way to get back on track.
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What if the present is even worse than the past thereby making the future seem all bleak? What if there is nothing in the present to rejoice over?
But being happy for happiness sake makes a lot of sense I guess.
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