Friday, September 17, 2010

My Daily Happiness Commitment: An Inspirational Morning

I like to read about happiness. It makes me happyJ If my Google account has ever been checked by the CIA, agents would have found that I Google happiness, self-development more than I Google Facebook. Accordingly, I come across an interesting title: The Happiness project : Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, published in 2010. Gretchen Craft Rubin, the writer, assigned a goal for every month such us adopting a healthier life style. The project aims at helping her find happiness. I have a similar one. My project started last year but it is not about monthly goals. I wanted to make every single day of my life a successful day. And successful does not mean productive or effective to me. It means happy. A happy day is about finishing things that I know will make my life better and also to try new things and treat myself like a Princess. Shortly, I try to make my life better every day.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." –Aristotle

I am convinced that the only way to live the life I want, is by creating a daily project. Reading, working out, writing … are habits that I am trying to bring into my life. It is easy to do something for one time, but it is hard to make it a habit. Habits are created when a change comes true.

What we chose to do on daily basis is what we chose to do on a lifetime. The only difference is that a lifetime happens once and a day happens every day. That is why; I am working on my day as a separate project. A day is not enough to read all the books that I want to read. That is true. But a day is not supposed to be enough to live a lifetime, a day is perfectly enough to live a single day.

I don’t count hours or minutes. I don’t write strict to-do-lists. Time is not wasted and never could be; we don’t own it to waste it, we don’t have it to give it up, we don’t possess it to spend it. Time is not ours; is a sort of space we live in. That is why; I shifted my focus into activities. I pick my daily activities according to three basic criteria: Fun, Self-development, and Career.

The most enjoyable and insightful part of a day is just when I wake up .That moment is the most special one, then come other moments. My new goal, sit last week, is to wake up early and have a morning spiritual ritual. I usually, practice yoga in the morning. Lately, I have been trying new exercises that mix yoga and stretching exercises and I find them very refreshing. After doing them I usually love to dance and hug life. However, the ritual I want to bring into my life is a little bit more ‘intense’. I know that ‘intense’ and ‘spirituality’ do not look like going together. But what I mean is a richer ritual which includes yoga, meditation, laughing, reading and breathing exercises. During the last week, I have been practicing waking up early. I know that a habit needs time. That is why; I call it ‘my daily happiness commitment’. Happiness has to start with a clear, enlightened mind!