How to be Happy

I am not so ignorant that I think I have the answers to the question of how to be happy for everyone and certainly I have been having trouble with this question just for me. However, I got a religious track yesterday from a Christian organization that addresses this very question and they have the answers. I thought I would share it with you since it does have food for thought here. The title of the track is "Five Secrets for Being Happy". There is no author on the track.

The first secret is to love people and not money and possessions.
I am not going to go into the quotations of the Bible because I am not a Christian as my blog attests and find no validity there, but the spirit of all religions have this as a basis of their religion. When I came to Korea, my sons got rid of all of my clothes and my huge library. I was grief stricken that they did. I told them that I had not died and was coming back. Then I realized that I was not reading or using those books but liked to just see those volumes on the shelf. The clothes were the same. Most of the clothes I never wore and were from the days I had a 9-5 job that I had left to work at home. Beside, I had lost over 50 lbs since coming here. They did not fit me anymore.

The article said that people should evaluate whether one can simplify their lifestyle. I had to see that I had given in to the fear of the past of being poor and never having enough. My sons had also gotten rid of my food reserves, much were well past the expiration date. It wasn't because I was stocking up a nuclear shelter. I had a large house full of stuff that I would never use and it was stuff they would have to eventually throw away. Call it karma, but it was time I got rid of all of that stuff.

Before I came here, I was fast accumulating more and more stuff. Now, I live in an apartment that is the size of my bedroom. I intend to live in my bedroom when I get back and never accumulate the huge amount of stuff again. It also cost a lot of money. Since I have been gone, I have lived on the money I made here and my son who is in charge of my finances has saved a nice amount of money for me.

I think this secret is worthwhile looking at and one I may not have even learned if I had not come here. It took a lot to learn here but well worth learning.

The second secret is to resist the urge to compare yourself with others.
As a teacher, I always have told students to just do the best you can and don't worry about anyone else. Well, it was so easy to tell students that but not so easy to do it myself. I am a writer and I would see writers who wrote so much better than I did, constructed plots so much better than I did, made more money than I did and won more awards than I did.

I have a friend who is very beautiful and I have known her for a very long time. When she was younger she spent a great deal of time and energy making herself look attractive and for the most part succeeded. Now, with advancing age, there is nothing sold in a bottle or done with a plastic surgeon's knife than can make her look the way she did 30 or 40 years ago. She did not inherit great bone structure or skin so her beauty is not holding up all that well. She is always comparing herself to other women and coming up on the short end. She was married to a man who I think finally left because she was driving him crazy with having to be reassured that she was beautiful. He left her and settled down with a woman her age.

The religious tract says that you should try and see yourself as God sees you and allow his view to influence your sense of self-worth. For me, it was upgrading my own sense of self-worth. I had to think I was worth more than my writing, my looks, my weight, age and so forth. I had to love myself regardless. I am a work of progress on this one but it is getting better.

The third secret is to maintain an appreciate attitude.
The track says to make time to meditate on the good things you now enjoy. There has been times in the past when my health was shaky. It is good now. One cannot buy good health to some extent. There are other things. One man I know who is bitter has a loving wife who works hard to make a good life for him. If she was no longer there then he would finally know what a good thing he had. I read good books when I can get them. I never have to depend on television or movies for entertainment. If I could not find a good book to read, I would write what I want to read. I am grateful for that. I friend loves to garden but lives in an apartment so she grows things in her windows and pots. She uses fresh herbs in her cooking. There is always things in our lives to be grateful for. We just forget.

The fourth secret is the choose your friends wisely.
This was one secret that I was going to disagree with. Then I started to think this one out. One time I had a friend who I felt close to but she dropped me when I got suspended from my job for an article in a magazine that I wrote that my boss disagreed with. It had nothing to do with my job and I filed an action with the union and won it along with back pay. I remember those dark days when I thought I was friend-less and my family rallied around me as well as my union for they knew I was right. I had warnings before that she was a fair weather friend but ignored them. I did not chose wisely my friendship but we live and learn.

I had a another friend who took my medications when I came back from the hospital and was in pain. My doctor gave me a medication that many people were addicted to. I did not know she had a drug problem. Luckily, I never really needed it. I had given her a key to my house and had to change the locks on the house. My son had surprised her going out the door with my meds. This time, I had no idea she had a problem with drugs. I did not know her well enough to have given her my key when she asked for it. I never do that anymore. She wanted the key, she said, in case I needed something and could not get to the door. I should have thought that one out more.

Secret five is satisfy your spiritual need.
This is the secret is that is not a secret to me at all. I have been doing this all of my life; but I have been doing more of it since coming to Korea which made it possible to do the other four. I think everyone should do some degree of spiritual work or working on the inner self. I don't think it has to be a religion or one particular form of inner work. It could be therapy.

Meditation is a good way to go here and there are many ways of doing it. Writing meditation is my favorite way and there are many books on this subject and many websites on the Internet. I have a friend who does walking meditation and another person I know who is into drawing meditation and I do a form of it in my journals. I think there are many ways of doing meditation and if one has a favorite activity you can incorporate it into meditation as long as no one is being hurt including the self.

I think all of the five ways is a good start on how to be happy. Finding out what makes one happy is a good way to discover who you are and that is not easy. I find writing a perfect vehicle but it is not for everyone. Biking may be for some while hiking may be for other or sewing or whatever. The thing is to not use passive activities such as watching television or movies. Involving one in life is what meditation is and not what many considering contemplating one's navel. It is the interaction with life starting with breathing and the necessary ingredient is the self and it is has to be your own way.

I hope this helps with your search to be happy. I just described my search.

The Flu

I had the flu for about three days. It was a low level type flu, and I think it was mild because I had my flu shot last November. In the past, I would get the flu and it would be so bad that I often ended up in the hospital. Since getting the yearly flu shots, the flu that I do get is very mild. The bad reactions from the flu has been bad all of my life. One time I had the flu so bad that I lost 30 lbs and could not even lift my head off the pillow. I really thought I was going to die. I had so little money but bribed someone to go to the store for me because my body knew what I needed. I could no longer throw anything up. I even went past the bile stage. I had a craving for grape juice and as soon as I got it, I started to mend.

This time, I just stayed in bed and read and wrote in my journal. I got up every so often and watched old movies on the Internet. I did not want to eat or drink anything and finally on the third day I felt great.

Sometimes, when someone is ill, things change. It is like taking a trip. You take a trip to the seashore or the mountains and something changes in your life that doesn't become clear until you get back. Sometimes, you can't even describe what it is that changed. That happened during my three days of the flu. I wasn't all that sick, but something changed. I wasn't even worried about getting to a doctor. I knew I was alright.

Maybe it was all of the writing I did or the old movies that were released in the 1930's that I watched or the fact that I finally fixed my Sony Reader and read some great stories but I seemed to be clearer about what I wanted to do in my life. When a friend called and invited me out to dinner during the middle of it, I declined. I just wasn't hungry and I told her that I may be contagious. It was more than that. I was processing something.

Even now, those changes have stayed with me. I have become more me. I never got depressed during those few days. I just enjoyed being who I was and realized a lot of things that I did not realize before. I don't even want to go to Home Plus as much as I used to. I just want to stay here and get ready to leave and I don't mean packing my bags. I mean preparing my mind and making up what it is that I want to do with the remaining years that I have left.

When you watch the old movies and old television shows, one has the advantage of viewing the lives of the people you are watching on film after they made that movie. For the most part, many are no longer with us. They have lived their entire lives and ended them after that brief period on film. It was like watching a current actor's grandmother in her prime and seeing the uncanny resemblance they both have to each other. Of course, those who make movies have those records while most of us don't. Their lives are in Wikipedia while most of us live the lives of quiet desperation and for the most part unrecorded. It is seeing how each of us live differently and how some of us were unhappy and some of us were never sober enough to know whether we were happy or not although drinking usually means we are unhappy. It gives you perspective we usually don't have.

I have relatives in history books but I never knew them and have no idea what they were like. I knew of a study at some big university years ago who chose some people at random and each of them had relatives who were in the history books. None of them knew those relatives either. I learned more about William Powell and Myrna Loy from the Thin Man series than I knew about relatives. By the way, they led very interesting lives after the filming of those movies.

I never seen a picture of my relatives other than a glimpse of my grandparents when I was a child. My children and grandchildren will never see those pictures for they are gone forever. I wish I could have seen them, but I did see other people who lived in the early 20th century and how their lives went.

So, I guess I should tie this all up. All of us human beings are descended from a small group of people in west Africa according to the science of genetics. No one knows who all of our relatives are and where we all are going. In those three days I was sick I spent some time thinking about where I was going and looking at where the people I was watching in those old black and white movies went and even where they are now buried. I think that sobered me up and made me think about the important things in life. I think I discovered the most important things were not the things I thought they were and that I don't know what is important except it probably is the people we love. I know that the things I was mad and angry about are not important at all.

Not Caring So Much What Others Think

I have always had a tendency to be optimistic. As a youngster, I remember a teacher criticized me for being a "Pollyanna" once and I had to look it up. Pollyanna was a fictional character who saw the bright side of things and the teacher wasn't being complementary. I really liked the teacher and felt a degree of shame in her comment. I tried not to be so upbeat.

Later, childhood friends would tell me that I was too cheerful in the morning. I love mornings and felt great when I was up early. One person even threatened to hit me the next time I said "good morning " to him. I got the message.

To please people, I would complain how rotten life was. I read all kinds of novels about things going wrong just when the protagonist thought they were going great. I hated those stories but I wrote them too. Life was a bitch and then you died. Then someone told me that I was a awful whiner and expected people to take care of me.


Since coming to Korea, I don't worry about what others think about me as much since I can't understand what others are saying. I have mentioned this before. One woman yelled at me over and over in broken English and I never did understand what she was mad at me about. Then while reading "The Summing Up" by W. Somerset Maugham I made up my mind that like the author I was not going to worry about what others think of me. It was one big waste of time. Of course, it took some doing on my part, but I worked on it.

For the most part, I am considered "the American". When I order a rice burger at a fast food restaurant, I hear the woman say: "Rice burger for the American." It is in Korean but I understand that much. Because I can rarely say anything that can be understood, I can only watch people and the events around me.

Today, I got on a bus to go home from Home Plus and the bus driver was in a very bad mood. He jerked the bus around angrily. He yelled at the drivers and when he stopped the bus at the stops he did it very suddenly. There were many older passengers who were having trouble standing up. At one point I grabbed a elderly woman so she would not fall. Different people were slipping and sliding. When he let me off the bus at my stop it was far away from so I had to walk on the street to get to where I had to go. I could not say anything. The average Korean would not say anything. It is considered rude and bus drivers get away with it, but even by everyday bus standards he was very bad.

I told someone recently that I am becoming more aware of myself as a person here. I used to spend so much time worrying what others thought of me and now I don't. I like this trend and hope it continues. I spend less time planning on how to express my anger and how to get even. It just does not make any difference anymore.

I sat on that bus today and there was nothing I could do but help people if I could. I could say anything to anyone. I was in a situation beyond my control and I accepted that. I did not get mad because I was in a country that was not mine and I could not speak the language and I did not understand what was going on. I went home and had a cup of coffee.

Inner World Journey

In a few months, December, I will be returning to the United States. In my mind I have been assessing what has happened to me since coming here in March of this year. One of the things that I have noticed is that I have been forced to deal more with myself than I would have normally. Most people around me speak a language that I don't understand. It is hard to get books in English although I have a reader and this computer and the Internet. I am for the most part isolated.

I have been going to a church on Sundays only because they speak English during the service which is getting me down as I don't believe in their doctrines and have major disagreements with many of their interpretations of the Bible. I am not a Christian but am interested enough in the Bible as an avid reader to overcome that, but not in overcoming their interpretation of who is in compliance of God's law and who is not. For example, they are not open and affirming to all groups of people. That is, they will accept gay and lesbian people into their meetings but it is clear they condemn their so-called life style. They are very nice people,though, and I would hate to give up going there.

The one person that I have been getting to know better is myself. This is a surprise. I thought I had been pretty good in writing in my journal, meditation every morning and so on. I haven't even scratched the surface if I can use slang here. There has been a lot of things that I have learned about myself that I did not know before because I had no other choice but to explore myself a bit more since there are no other people to talk to but myself for the most part.

I am writing full time now and established a routine so I won't end up doing nothing; and that means working more in my journal since that task sharpens my writing skills and directs my writing projects a bit more. That also means delving deeper into my self and that has brought up some surprises. It always astounds me that no one really knows the person they live with as a spouse or partner and even less the self.

For instance, I am far more spiritual than I ever thought I was. I used to hide this from friends when I was growing up. There are options that are open for men who have strong spiritual interests as becoming priests, ministers, monks and others but not too many for women. The only ones are nuns and they have little power over their own lives and cannot explore spiritual matters on their own. I tended to keep my spiritual interests hidden to some extent and when I was with people who were strong believers in their own faith it was hard not to question their beliefs especially when it contradicted what I thought was the spirit of what the Eternal stood for. Now, that I discovered this I have no intention of inflicting my beliefs on those who just want to be Christians on Sundays and good people on the rest of the week. I have to accept people's limitations.

Sometimes, each of us believe we have been disliked because of some unknown reason but I find being a loner and a reader I may have hurt my friends feelings when I took off to the library or other places to do my own thing while they did things such as socialize that I did not care to do as much. There was really nothing wrong with neither my friends or myself but a misunderstanding. I know my parents did not always understand me either since I did things they did not understand either such I was the first to complete school and get advanced degrees. They thought I should just get married like my sister.

Being a Buddhist, I know I needed to examine past attachments and disengage so that I won't hold past anger. I used these excursions into the past to do that. The more I did it, the more I realized that everyone was just trying to survive the best they could. No one was against me and that those episodes that I was holding grudges were episodes in which people were mad at me, probably, at the time. I did not have to say "I forgive you" and so on. There was nothing to forgive anyone for.

I have a few extra pounds and sometimes I think those pounds are like a wall of flesh that I use to protect myself. I explored that too. I think that is why I have been able to start losing the weight that I have not been able to for years. I find that I don't need to have this wall of fat anymore. I can protect myself without it. There are bullies out there. I can effectively protect without putting anything between myself and people. I can tell people that it is not ok to talk to me like that or just remove myself from the situation. I also explored why I was so easily bullied in the first place.

I have been afraid of going back home in a sense. I don't want a return to the old world, so I have been exploring that as well. There are no guarantees in life and there certainly are no guarantees in this either. Still, I will have the exact same tools in the States as I have now. I can do this. It has been good being in Korea.