Are You Happy? Part 2 by John Cali

We had some interesting and insightful responses to our article, Are You Happy?, earlier this week. So today we’re going to talk again about happiness.

Here are a few more of my favorite happiness quotations:

  • Through practices of self-awareness, you will establish an unshakable baseline of happiness through all of life’s ups and downs. ~ Deepak Chopra
  • Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it. ~ Groucho Marx
  • Happiness depends upon ourselves. ~ Aristotle
  • Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
  • Remember this, that very little is needed to make a happy life. ~ Marcus Aurelius
  • It is only possible to live happily ever after on a daily basis. ~ Margaret Bonanno
  • Your happiness is a gift because it literally brings out the best in you. ~ Robert Holden
  • When our communication supports compassionate giving and receiving, happiness replaces violence and grieving. ~ Marshall Rosenberg
  • We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same. ~ Anne Frank
  • The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is. ~ Desiderius Erasmus

And here are some more of my favorite happiness quotations from Spirit:

  • Happiness is an “inside job.” You must create it for yourselves. Yet so many of you wait for someone or something outside yourselves to do it for you.
  • A happy life is an “inside job.” You create a happy life from within.
  • It is only when you can truly and deeply love yourselves, and love where you are now, that you will find happiness.
  • The only guarantee of a happy life is reclaiming the power within, and not allowing your happiness to be determined by what or who are “out there.”
  • Once you are happy you will start noticing how beautiful your world is, how beautiful other people are, how beautiful you are.
  • Attachment to the world around you drags you from your happiness, your joy.
  • When you seek happiness within you will empower yourselves to create and live the most joyous, abundant lives you have ever known.

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Please share your thoughts about happiness below, and also your personal experiences.

We welcome your comments and thoughtful opinions, whether you agree or disagree with us. Please keep your comments polite and relevant to the topic of this blog post. If needed, we’ll edit for clarity. Also, we’ll delete anything we consider inappropriate.

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19 Responses

  1. Chieko

    Dear Patience,

    Thanks very much for your sincere and honest response, Patience. Blessings to you too!

    One thing I want to tell you is I do wish for your happiness strongly. So do many other readers like dear Robin Becker, and our dear John, and even those people in the world whom you don’t know personally. I think we humans, by nature, wish for others’ happiness. We wish for everybody’s happiness including all those we don’t even know. That’s what you’re doing too. And it’s always nice to meet someone who strongly reflects that to you in your life personally. I just want you to know I’m one of those who wish for your happiness and also have known you in many of our lifetimes. Otherwise our realities wouldn’t have had any merging points like this.

    I thank you for wishing me happiness too.

    Love always,
    Chieko

  2. Robin Becker

    Patience ♥ After reading my response again..I do not like how I sounded. And I realize it is so much easier for someone in a good place to sound condescending which is how I now view my post and I am so sorry for that. Please know I hold no arrogance as I feel I also sounded. I came from similar feelings place as you seem to be. And I probably would have slapped someone that attempted to advise me like I did with you. So please accept my apology and know that I come from a place of love and was trying to advise in the ways that helped me.
    I was a tv nut when I was at my darkest. That is where those comments came from. I thought the world was a horrible place, that it was coming to an end, that evil lurked around every corner.I was also very physically ill. When I got into Abraham/Hicks material ..it was strongly suggested to turn the tv off. I did and I felt major shifts in how I felt. That is why I offered it to you. Now after about a good year of avoiding any negative tv..I cannot even watch 5 minutes of the news or any shows about crime or violence. It made a big improvement in how I viewed every thing. But at the time things were bad I lived in my room and tv was my world. I wrongly assumed that with you.
    John Cali offers huge amounts of information which I have gained a lot of knowledge, I have studied most of Abraham/Hicks and their Law of Attraction series and it has been life changing. I once felt like you and after studying with them..and it did not happen over night, I slowly got to know who I am, why I am here. I have been able to communicate with my Inner Being..You can do the same by finding the teachers right for you. You will unravel the beautiful truth as you go at your own pace in learning how to quiet you mind, meditate, appreciate..you will start to get proof of the love we are apart of, that surrounds us..that is us. And once you start proving to yourself…your knowing will become unshakable..
    Again, I am sorry. I was not happy when I reread what I had written you and felt I had to write and let you know that and that I do very much care and come from a place of love. What I was trying to say was for me it was I had to change my focus deliberately. Once I did, my life, my health and outlook on all changed completely. I hope you find an easy path to happiness 🙂 All my very best to you ♥

    • Chieko

      Your comments to Patience really made my heart warm. I just want to thank you for that. Thank you, Robin. What a kind, sincere, and loving person you are!

  3. Robin Becker

    Happiness is a personal choice. I chose to be happy so I no longer watch negative TV which includes the news ( they seem to thrive on the worst stories they can find) I choose to start my days appreciating what I have and who I am blessed to share my life experience with ( pets too) I chose thoughts that are positive and avoid negative thinking.

    To the first responder-

    Regarding 9/11 – why keep reliving it ? It just brings pain from the past into your future. We cannot know about how anyone else felt or what they were thinking because we all have are own unique, individual perspective about everything. Those who transitioned are doing great and not focused on the event or anything else negative. To keep reliving it in your mind is to keep going over and over something that is long gone but your bringing that negative vibration into your now.
    We joyously chose to come here to sift and sort through the contrast to create new desires. We are nobody’s puppet…we are each born free..we create our own reality through our own thoughts and feelings. And to know that you create your own reality by what you think about don’t you think focusing on the good things would be to your advantage? The world is not bad…bad things happen, but much much more good happens. It all depends on where you chose to focus.
    I don’t mean this as an insult at all…I would just say when people are seeing so much of the bad it usually means too much TV..Remember those doing stories for tv find the most horrendous things because it gives them great ratings. And then they add music too it for the drama. I would challenge anyone feeling like this to shut down all media for a week and start looking for and documenting all the beauty you can find by just walking around or being in nature.

    I could go on……………………. lol

    • John Cali

      Thanks very much, Robin. I hold the same perspective you do. My spirit guides have said TV is one of the most negative influences in our modern world. And for the very reasons you mention — their focus is almost exclusively on the “bad” news. That simply inspires more fear and more negativity, thus creating more “bad” news.

    • Patience

      Thank you for your thoughts and observations. Yes, TV’s influence is all pervasive. I don’t watch it very much at all and not the news so your observation about me does not hold. I do help with dog rescue and that is where I see so much bad human behavior and cruelty, first hand.
      I do not relieve or obsess about 9/11, it was simply a convenient example.
      If I create this reality, then why do things happen that I never would even THINK of doing? I create the daily actions of over 9 billion people? And then what do they create? Me? It is easy to say the words, that we create our own reality, but what does that mean really mean in practical terms?
      Do animals create their reality? To die in gas chambers or being burned alive? To be born and die of starvation? Who is creating that reality? I do not focus on this, but I am aware that it happens. Do we simply turn away and ‘be happy’?
      I have been told I am I am clarscientient. At times, for instance during Katrina, it can be draining and tiring due to the heightened awareness.
      Blessings.

  4. Patience

    I read the quotes and the messages and understand them in my head, but my heart is balking. Isn’t it just being in denial of what is around you?

    Today is the anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11 in NYC. It has been written that these souls agreed to do this. But to me that doesn’t take away the true physical pain that occurred. Where they happy as they died? .Are we just puppets of an all powerful being who wishes to experience something regardless of how the physical body is hurt? That is a chilling thought to me.

    An agreement requires both parties to be aware and I just don’t see that happening. I don’t remember agreeing to anything. I have had people tell me that it is just part of the ‘separation’ and we are just actors. But an actor knows they are playing a part don’t they?

    I find it very hard to be truly happy when there is so much physical suffering on this planet, people being tortured, raped, starving and animals being abused, killed and maimed. With no end in sight. The planet being destroyed around us (again supposed to be part of her evolution, but toxic waste and billions of plastic diapers?). I find it hard to reconcile this with a loving God. And so I now wonder if there is a God? And if so what kind of a God would create this? Am I part of that God? If I am, then I would remake much.

    This planet is supposed to be ‘fun’? I guess don’t understand that definition of ‘fun’ then.

      • Patience

        I will check those out. Thank you for your response.
        A year ago I felt very differently. I was absolutely certain there was something more, but lately my ‘faith’ has been shaken. What if we are all just delusional? We want there to be something more so we invent it to comfort us. And the organized religions seek to control us through fear. Real or not the fear of God or hell served a purpose to keep people in line. Maybe I think too much! (smile)

        • Chieko

          Hi Patience,

          Thank YOU for your response. Oh, how happy I was to receive your response! And how even happier I was to read what you wrote at the end — smile! As you said, maybe we just think too much. Or if we want to think too much we should think about what we appreciate in life “too much.” 🙂

          I was very happy to know that just a year ago, you were feeling very differently. I knew you are a happy being, and it was only because of your kind and sympathetic heart that you felt the tug of war between what you knew to be true with all fibers of your being and what you temporarily focused. I think this often happens to sensitive and innocent people like teenagers, and most of us have gone through this kind of stage at one point or another in our lives. There really is nothing wrong with it. All is always well for all people in all places — as Spirit and John always say.

          You said “…but lately my ‘faith’ has been shaken.” When you said this I thought of the importance of the vision we hold — the one long line or path we always stubbornly see as real.

          May I introduce one more video to you? (Of course, under John’s permission. By the way, Happy Super Duper Belated Birthday to John. I hope you had a wonderful birthday on Sep 8, John.)

          http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html

          In this video, Benjamin Zander talks about many wonderful and touching subjects. And one of them is about the importance of holding a vision. He says, “Like the bird who flies over the field and doesn’t care about the fences underneath” we “have to stop thinking about every single note (=detail) along the way, and start thinking about the long, long line.” He also talks about Nelson Mandela who held his vision in jail for 27 years.

          As it was mentioned by Dr. Raymond Moody in the video that John introduced to us in his latest newsletter, after we “die” — during our life review process — we’ll feel everything that the people we’ve interacted with in our lives felt “at that exact moment.” Dr. Moody said, “They take the perspective of the person that they have been unkind to. Accordingly, if they see an action where they have been loving to someone, then they can feel the warmth and good feelings that has resulted in, in the life of this person.” So if we know the end results that we will all understand each other and feel only love and light “at the end” will those details along the way in our lives matter to us (in a negative way) or bother us? If we know what we’re going to say at the end to each other is “Thank you.” with all our hearts, then will we let those unimportant trifles in other person’s/s’ behavior hurt our feelings now? If time doesn’t exist and we feel that communication happening right now and hear the words “Thank you.” at this very moment from the person(s) we care about in our lives, will we not just shed tears and say, “I should have loved you more unconditionally without my true vision being shaken by the temporary appearance of that situation.”? For me, when I think this way, any knot in my stomach instantly goes away. It makes me feel really humble in front of the glorious world we’re blessed to live in.

          Patience, I know you already know all this and what bothered you was not really the people you’re interacting with but more the things happening in the world. But I just wanted to relate that vision on people to even the vision you hold on where our world is heading to.

          Have you read this part under “home” on this website? Spirit says, “When you are feeling joy on your spiritual journey, when you seek joy in all your experiences, when you feel joy no matter what is happening to the world and the people around you — it is then you are in the highest vibration possible for any human. It is then you are fully aligned with your perfect spiritual path. It is then you are fully aligned with your higher self, that all-powerful, all-wise spiritual being who lives eternally in the highest vibrations and dimensions of the Universe.” I think this truly is the vision our higher selves always and eternally hold for us. I think this is what Mikala Saint Germain also talked about as knowing in her recent comments.

          Dear Patience, I hope this done deal called the vision our higher selves always and eternally hold for us will make you feel much better. But I know you’re already feeling much better. So what was I doing here writing so long? I’ve realized I was only enjoying writing for my own pleasure. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to write. And thank you for your “patience” to have read all this, dear Patience and anyone who has read all this. My last words to you all are “Thank you!”

          Love, appreciation, and friendship,
          Chieko

          • Patience

            Chieko, just reading what you wrote makes me smile. I can feel the sincerity in what you write. No judgement or ‘shoulds’, but acceptance.
            I have my ups and downs…some days I am happier than others.
            I still do not understand why the world was created this way and why there is so much actual physical pain and suffering, why animals eat each other, etc., but it isn’t causing me anguish right now.
            I no longer feel I worry much about insults or finding true love, but it was almost easier when I did. It consumed me so that I was blind to the suffering around me. I was focused and nothing else mattered. Funny how none of those all consuming ‘wants’ matters anymore and yet when I was young it was all there was. But the scales have dropped from my eyes.
            Reminds me of Albert Schweitzer: ‘“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.” Or Victor Frankl: ‘Those who give light must endure burning’.
            Blessings

  5. House of Newf

    From what the above are writing, perhaps in stead of calling it Happiness or Joy, we should go with “What feels Good”

    Smiling at you!
    Sandy

  6. Sarah

    I’ve loved reading these last two posts on Happiness! Thanks 🙂

  7. Shirl

    Happiness IS! Happiness is a state of mind, a perspective, a choice of how to view things and experiences.

    Actually I left happiness behind several years ago when I transitioned into pure JOY! For me JOY is so much more expansive and inclusive and exuberant than just happiness. But then, I am a word person so I like to reside in the most powerful expression of words I am able.

    Whether one calls it happiness or JOY doesn’t matter so much as one truly inhabits that expression.

    Happy, Happy, JOY, JOY! It’s all good.

    Blessings and hugs
    Shirl

    • John Cali

      I agree, Shirl — it doesn’t matter what we call it. It’s ALL good!

      Love & hugs,
      John

      • ReneMcCoy

        Shirl, I find the same kind of difference between feeling grateful and feeling appreciation. I find appreciation just a little bit better, but who cares? They all feel good.

        • Shirl

          Right you are. They do all feel good. I am pretty convinced that for myself my choice of words matter in as much as they produce different or more intense feeling (energy) within. On the other hand, whatever works for another is just absolutely perfect.

          It all IS good. It all IS.

          Hugs
          Shirl

          • John Cali

            Thanks very much, Shirl. I agree — our words are far more important than many realize. It’s all good!

            Big hugs,
            John

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