During Thursday night Yin/Restorative yoga I shared a quote that has been on my mind often ever since.
“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
― Mother Teresa
I know sometimes I have my moments of wondering "How on earth can people be so mean." Though I'm sure I give people reasons to say the same thing. But after really thinking about this quote it made me understand something. It doesn't matter, what matters is how I feel at the end of the day after trying my best. We can never base our happiness or contentment on how others behave. So just some food for thought today. Can we do good without recognition? Can we be honest even if it may be hard? Yes, we can. We can do those things because we are here to give respect to others and treat each other and ourselves with loving kindness.
This quote also reminded me of a documentary that I recently watched on Netflix. The documentary is "Happy" Basically the film travels around the globe to find people who are happy.
The film is Studded with research on what really makes people happy. In the beginning of the film they follow a man in India who in most of our American views would have very little to be happy about. He talks about his home which is lacking in walls, but goes to talk about the nice breeze. He emphasises his love for his children and that when he looks at them it makes him happy. Basically they break down the research like this: 50% of our happiness is predisposed in our genes. 50%!!! The good news is that 10% of our happiness is based on Life Circumstances such as poverty, or wealth. The extra 40% of happiness is based on Intentional Activities. 40% of our happiness is determined by what we chose to do with our life with the time we are given.
They found that the happiest people:
Counted their blessings- People who consistently took time to find things to be thankful for had higher happiness ratings and felt more satisfied.
Physical Exercise-Raising our Dopamine levels naturally, what could be better than that? Exercise increases the release of dopamine in the body, and what is important to remember is that as we age dopamine levels tend to decrease, so finding ways like exercise to increase dopamine is a simple way to find happiness.
Being connected to close family, friends, and community- They found in the study that the difference in happiness levels between a family making $40,000 a year compared to $150,000 were basically the same... We live in a society that tells us we need to be on a treadmill of work, go home, watch TV, see commercials or read magazines telling us we are more valued if we have more stuff, and then we go shopping to get this stuff, but then we need to work more to get more stuff. The cycle never ends until we realize that although buying stuff can make us happy for a moment it is not lasting, and there is always more to get. Real happiness comes from relationships that we make and nurture with others. How will we have time to do this if we are so worried about working to pay for our $30 T-shirts, or our new car payments? The point is that once our basic need of Shelter, and food are taken care of we need loving relationships. So find relationships that make you feel loved, and help take care of other peoples need for the same.
Service to others- Those who gave service to others were found to be happier people. Which leads me back to Mother Teresa. The film follows a man who volunteers at a Mother Teresa home for the dying. He gave up living a more luxurious lifestyle to help others because he found it made him happier to serve others. They also found that when people meditated on loving kindness they recovered just as well from traumatic instances as those who were prescribed only anti-depressants. When we start to practice loving kindness more it changes our perspective. Things no longer are about what the world can do for us, but what we can do for the world, to make it a better more loving place.
I realized that I must have enjoyed my Yoga Teacher Training so much because it gave me the opportunity to practice all of these intentional activities. Check out some of my homework requirements: Keep a gratitude journal, random acts of kindness, physical activity (of course), and meditation. I can honestly say that it was practicing these things that helped me and continue to help me through difficult times in life. We all have our bad days, and to be perfectly honest I deal with seasonal depression and had a bout of it recently in January. I realized that this is one of those genetic traits, however I still have that 40% of intentional activities to boost my happiness when I get down. So to get myself out of the rut I started drinking more, a lot more, water. Meditating on loving kindness, and giving to others. What happened? I snapped out of it. It wasn't overnight, but eventually I was able to get up out of bed and continue on with my days, and not just suffering though the days but finding joy in them.
My question for today is: When do you feel most happy and content?
And to quote again sweet Mother Teresa: "Be Happy Anyway."
