1. Count your blessings.
When we are thankful for what we are blessed with in life, we will be happy. On the other hand, people are unhappy because they are deprived of something, be it material possession like money or emotional attachment like friendship, love and kinship. For me, I am thankful for my family, my friends, my health, my job and even this very day that I am alive. I am thankful for being to be able to be born in Singapore where we are free from the natural disasters. I am thankful that my hard work in my studies are paid off with a stable and well paying job. I am thankful to be able to do many things I enjoy, which includes eating good food, watching nice movies and spending time with my family members. I am thankful that I am able to travel to other countries for holiday trips and learn more about different cultures and lifestyle. I am thankful to meet good people who inspire me to do more for this world. I am thankful for all the help, advice and guidance that people have given me throughout my life. I am thankful to be given the opportunities to make a difference to the lives of others. Lastly, I am thankful to be reminded once in a while on how blessed and fortunate a person I am.
2. Spreading happiness to others.
I have learned from a young age that bringing happiness to others is one of the best form of gaining happiness for myself. Whenever I am able to help someone or make someone happy, I feel happy too. It is this belief that propel in me to reaching out to help the less fortunate. Through participating in volunteer work during my studies, I learned that helping others can be a very meaningful and fulfilling thing to do. When I graduated from school, I am bogged down by my commitment in work and personal life. However, this does not mean that we stop helping or giving happiness to others. There are still many ways to give happiness to others and that is why I am advocating that we engage in acts of kindness for others. This is especially targeted to friends who want to do good but are very busy to participate in volunteer work. We can all engage in acts of kindness because an act of kindness is easy to do and does not take much time to complete. When we give kindness to people and make their day, we will feel the happiness inside us too. Helping others, making another person happy are all acts of kindness. Again, I am thankful to discover one of the secrets of happiness, that is to bring kindness to others and lend a helping hand whenever possible.
3. Do not be obsessed with material desires
I have to say that money is important because the cost of living in Singapore is rather high but we should be too obsessed with making money. The society defines success as the person who drives luxury cars, own luxury apartment, wear branded from head to toe and has lots of cash in the bank. However, before we aspire to reach that "successful" level, we should ask ourselves this, "Will we be happier if we have the big cars, the houses and the money?" The question is not will we be happy but will we be happier, much happier if we have all these material possessions? If we are already happy with what we have, should we still strive towards this target and make ourselves unhappy if we don't accomplish our goals? The pursuit of the material desires is never ending and often people who are chasing this dream get sucked into a vicious cycle of greed and unhappiness. When we achieve our first million dollars, we want more, we are unhappy with one million dollars so we set the next target of two million dollars. When we have two million dollars, we think how nice would it be if we have three million dollars. The greed of human nature will keep us wanting for more. In the end, we will never be happy because what we have is always never enough to satisfy our wants. The question boils down to how much do we really need. If we only need ten thousand dollars, why do we want to set a high target of one million dollars? I believe in fulfilling our basic needs and setting a contingency sum for rainy days, the rest of our time and effort can be spent on doing something more meaningful. Also, people barely remember you for how rich you are because there will always be someone richer out there. The best gift that we can pass to others is the happy memories we created for them, the moments we touch their lives with kindness and love, not how much money we have given them.
4. Don't compare yourself with others.
I feel that people will be unhappy if they compare themselves to others who are better off in some aspect. We can admire someone for their talents but should not make ourselves any worse off by measuring up against them. We must be ourselves and love ourselves for who we are and not be unhappy with what we don't have or are not. It is easy to be envy that someone has a job that is more well paid and less stressful, having a spouse who is more attractive or rich parents who can splurge on them, but bear in mind that no one is perfect or leads a perfect life. What we are seeing may only be the superficial side of things but they could have their issues in life to deal with. By comparing ourselves with people who are better off in some ways, we are making ourselves unhappy. You never know that the same person might envy you for something that he/ she doesn't have. The way to find happiness is to be happy with what you already have and make the best out of it. Not comparing with others saves us much worries and unhappiness.
5. Be positive
Staying positive about life is one of the most important attitude that one must have to be happy. The obstacles and issues in life can make or break you, it really depends on how you see them and how much you want to learn from them. Being positive means that you can focus on the solution rather than the problem and you will solve the problem faster instead of approaching it with a negative mindset. Waking up every morning for work can be a dreadful feeling but it can also be a happy feeling for the positive person who feels blessed to be given another day to do the things that he/ she enjoys. When the going gets tough, it is important to approach issues with a positive mindset because negativity breed more negativity and vice versa.
6. Have a purpose in life
We should aspire to find our purpose in life and live life to the fullest. The saddest thing that can happen is to look back when we are in our old age and have regrets about the things we should have done when we have the chance, time and energy to do so. Also, we should not going through motion in life; studies, work, career, family planning, retirement are what most people go through and it seems like that is how life should be. However, while going through these stages in life, we have to find meaning and fulfillment in the things we do, otherwise we are really doing it for the sake of doing or following what others define as the norm. I can be going through these stages happily if I find meaning and purpose in the things I do while I can drag my feet through these stages because I do not find any significant purpose in doing the things that others think I should be doing.
7. Love yourself
There is time to work hard and there is time for rewards. Loving oneself is as important as loving others. If we are hard on ourselves and can't bear to spend any money to reward ourselves, then we can't be happy. I am not advocating the other extreme of splurging but we should love ourselves more and give ourselves a good treat every now and then. Some ways of loving oneself include buying yourself a nice gift, treating yourself to good food and engaging in enjoyable activities like going on a holiday, never mind the money spent but to keep the activities in moderation. The miser may be happy that he is accumulating a lot of money in the bank but he is likely to lead an unhappy life if he watches every spending closely, to the extent of sacrificing his happiness just to save up the money. Other than spending the money to pamper ourselves, it doesn't harm to remind ourselves once in a while that we are proud of who we are because we have worked hard, helped others and are useful members of the society.
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