Lighten Up! Be Happy!

By Lionel Ketchian

How are those New Year's resolutions you made going for you? You may have made it through the first week and now you realize you're not keeping them. Don't be hard on yourself; Lighten Up! Be Happy! You say you would like to be happy, but you have problems. Guess what, everyone has problems. Stop letting your problems affect you.

Are you worrying about your problems? Most people allow worry to get the best of them. Worrying is not going to solve your problems. In fact, worrying is just another problem for you to deal with. Thinking about your problem is not worrying. That's because thinking is directed toward solving the problem. Think about the solutions you have available to you. When you come up with solutions, you will not need to worry about your problems.

According to one survey of white-collar workers, most of them have or would have made reducing stress their number one resolution, they felt that it was even more important to them than losing those extra pounds or to stop smoking.

Lighten Up! Be Happy and you will reduce stress in you life as well as find solutions to your problems faster. You will even find better solutions because you will be in a better frame of mind. Lighten Up! Change your attitude. Your attitude is a part of your problem. Attitude has a dramatic effect on your problems and your life. How does lightening up and being happy have a positive affect on you life? I'll tell you the secret if you promise to tell everyone. It is all about POWER. Energy is power that you have control over. Energy is Power and Happiness is Power. Happiness is energy of the highest order. Happiness is your power source, get connected! As a source of power it can produce energy. Energy is all around us, so it's not about finding energy and using the energy, it's about tapping into your power supply.

Your connection is happiness. To prove it to you look at the opposite, which is unhappiness. Unhappiness is a feeling of being disconnected. Unhappiness is about being cut off from the energy that we feel when we are happy. Look at how we describe both states of being. We describe unhappiness as being down and out or feeling low. We describe happiness as feeling high or being in the flow. Happiness is our connection to power. Happiness is our connection to one another. When we experience happiness with another human being we feel connected. Laughter produces the same results, and as an aspect of happiness, it makes us feel better. It's an energy producer, and it is a source of power because it brings people together.

Remember the old saying, "Laughter is the best medicine?" A medicine changes a weakened state into a healthy, more powerful state. To be able to lighten up and laugh may be one of the most powerful things you can do, especially when things are not going well. When a family member, a friend or you are not feeling well, or maybe are fighting a serious illness, how can lightening up and being happy change such a serious situation? Lightening up can be the most powerful thing you can do in a serious situation. The reason is that you are taking control of yourself. That is real power! To laugh often and much, especially at your self, can create the energy you need to help you have the power and energy to overcome the illness.

Whether you have medical, financial or relationships problems, Lighten Up and Be Happy and notice the positive benefits. What are they? Being happy when everything looks bad makes you take charge of the situation and yourself. You are not allowing the situation to tell you what to do. Once you become unhappy, you are letting the problem tell you what to think and how to act. When you can be happy in the worst situation you, become the most powerful person in the world. You become who you really are. Problems do not make you; they reveal who you really are.

Everyone wants to be happy. To really be happy, you must learn happiness is a cause, not an effect. Almost everyone lives his or her life with happiness as an effect. People want happiness, and hope it comes to them in their day to day lives. People wake up in the morning hoping it will be there in a compliment or in something that happens to them during the day. The problem with happiness as effect is no matter how many"good things" happen, you will let the smallest "bad thing" takes it all away. This is the real reason most people do not find happiness "out there."

There is another way to live your life. Live your life with "Happiness as a Cause." OK but how do you do that? Decide to be happy -- no matter what. You wake up in the morning and decide to be happy. You go through the day and experience people and events that would make most people unhappy, Not You! You're too smart for that. You know that you, and only you, are in charge of your happiness, no one else is. You wouldn't want anyone else to be in charge of your happiness.

The secret to living your life is to: "Lighten Up! Be Happy!" This is your power source for energy, rarely experienced by most people. Yes, it does take discipline to stick to the resolution to be happy. It is worth it, believe me. Nothing makes more sense than Being Happy. It will carry you from the valleys of despair to the mountaintop of joy.

You have a right to be unhappy. I cannot talk you out of it. Most people have allowed unhappiness to be the strategy to living their life. Does it feel right to you? Of course not! There is another way. Lighten Up! Be Happy and you will be the cause of what you experience. No one can change your attitude without your permission. Sometimes things will go your way and sometimes they won't. You may not always get to choose what happens, but you always get to decide how you will think about what happens.

Lighten Up! Be Happy. Become the most powerful person you have ever known. Another important key is that you must want happiness even more than you want to get rid of your problem. Happiness will give you the energy to overcome your problem, if it is at all possible. Control your power and you control your problem. Happiness is the power you have, choose it and use it well. The real secret to happiness is don't wait for it to happen, make it part of your life.