A Nice Thought for the Day

I just saw this in the Sales Strategies #90 newsletter. Just make you think that we are all concentrating on the wrong things and not the right things in our daily lives:

THE ART OF HAPPINESS

Last night, I read something that was very powerful and I want to share it
with you. Obviously, you can tell from the title it has to do with
HAPPINESS. Why in the world would I want to share ideas about happiness
with you?

Here's why! I just don't see a lot of happy people around anymore. I see
people multitasking and not really taking any pleasure in any of the
tasks. I see people eating, drinking, talking on the telephone, putting
on makeup, and combing their hair and do it all while driving in their
cars.

I see unhappy people on airplanes, rental car shuttles, hotel lobbies,
shopping malls, restaurant, and even in Churches.

When it comes to happiness I'm still a work in progress. I want to share
this essay with you in the hope that it may in some small way give you
something to think about. It sure got me thinking!

"There was never a time when so much official effort was being expended to
produce happiness, and probably never a time when so little attention was
paid by the individual to creating the personal qualities that make for
it.

What one misses most today is the evidence of widespread personal
determination to develop a character that will in itself, given any
reasonable odds, make for happiness.

Our whole emphasis is on the reform of living conditions, of increased
wages, of controls on economic structure - the government approach - and
so little on improving ourselves.

The ingredients of happiness are so simple that they can be counted on one
hand. Happiness comes from within, and rests most securely on simple
goodness and clear conscience. Religion may not be essential to it, but
no one is known to have gained it without a philosophy resting on ethical
principles.

Selfishness is its enemy; to make another happy is to be happy oneself.
It is quiet, seldom found for long in crowds, most easily won in moments
of solitude and reflection. It cannot be bought; indeed money has very
little to do with it.

No one is happy unless he is reasonably well satisfied with himself, so
that the quest for tranquility must of necessity begin with
self-examination. We shall not often be content with what we discover in
the scrutiny.

There's so much to do, and so little done. Upon this searching
self-analysis, however, depends the discovery of those qualities that make
each person unique, and whose development alone can bring satisfaction.

Of all those who have tried, down the ages, to outline a program for
happiness, few have succeeded so well as William Henry Channing, chaplain
of the House of Representatives in the middle of the 1800s:"

Here's what he had to say.

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy... to study hard, think
quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to the stars and birds, to
babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
await occasions, hurry never; in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and
unconscious, grow up through the common."

I find it absolutely amazing that William Ogdon wrote this essay, which
appeared on the editorial page of the New York Times on December 30, 1945.

Happiness is not an entitlement. I wonder how many salespeople believe
they would be happier if only the economy would get better. Happiness
doesn't come from the economy. It comes from what we chisel out every 24
hours we are given.

Well, if this isn't enough to get you thinking maybe a quote from
Frederick Loomis will. He said, "Enjoy yourself-it's later than you
think."

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think . .

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