Happiness and the End of This Letter

The Rules of Being Happier More Often: (Further Conclusion)

If you finish this book by saying: Well this was pretty basic stuff. Anyone could have written this. BRAVO!

Anyone could write this stuff because it is simple to understand, if not always easy to do. The usefulness of this book, however, will come out of asking yourself, Do I practice these basics? If so which ones? Which don't I practice and what stops me from doing what I believe is best for me? Which of these ideas in this long letter make sense to me; which do not? Why?

How would you write this book differently? Why?

What are your stories that go with each topic? How could you help other people and yourself through your stories and those of people you know? Use this letter as an excuse to do some thinking, talking and writing for yourself and to others.

Your have basically three choices now:

1. choose to do nothing and live life as it comes,
   

2. choose to be happier more often,
   

3. choose to find other answers (and questions).
   

Enjoy whichever choice you make.

If you remember one thing from this letter I hope it is to compare yourself to Viktor Frankl’s life experiences. No matter the fragility of your life, your vulnerability to external forces that can, at any time, take away your joy and happiness, there will be moments of happiness. Whether it is like the person who walks through the concentration camp offering comfort or a last piece of bread or the person who shares a memory of their wife who has already died in the gas chambers, these are treasures that can occur during weeks, months and years of despair. Most of us do not have to experience such deprivation, humiliation and isolation–however, it is somewhat comforting to know that moments of happiness can exist in such times and, therefore, during our own trials and tribulations. It is being open to such moments of happiness, peacefulness, joy, calmness and excitement that makes life worth sharing with others.

Well, that’s the end of this letter. Of course, there may be more to come. Letter writers never die….they keep writing until their last letter.

I’d like to leave you with several memory aids that might help you put some of the information in this book/letter into context for your own situations. I hope they might help you design your own ‘rules’ or summaries so that you experience more moments of happiness in your life.

Other Ways to Summarize Being Happier More Often

There are so many memory aids to help you practice some of what we have looked at together in this book. Here are a few more:

Your 10 Rules for being Happier More Often (and Successful!)

This repeats the rules from earlier in the book. We will go from 10 down to number 1. Each rule is important in its own way so don’t sneak ahead in the list. Each rule will help you choose to be happier more often starting today.

10. Smile and laugh more often. A 10-minute belly laugh massages your internal organs better than hours of quiet meditation.

9.   Breathe slowly and deeply at least 3 times a day for 5-10 minutes. You can do this while you are working at your desk, driving your car, walking your dog, waiting in a line, etc.

8. Music – listen, sing, write, or dance. Use energizing or relaxing music, depending on how you would like to be happy at that moment.

7. Relationships – nurture the ones you have; create new ones with people older and younger. If you work 10-12 hour days and say you are doing it for your family, you are kidding yourself. Absence does not make the heart grow founder if you are absent most of every day of your working life. Go home and nurture your family and friends.

6. Emotional joy – find out what makes you smile, laugh, and feel peaceful and write down your favorite 10. Then do them more often. It could be watching your child sleep, sitting quietly on a park bench, watching a favorite comedy on TV, going for lunch or a walk with a dear friend you rarely see, sharing a family meal together more often, holding hands with your sweetie, eating some of Mom’s homemade cookies or working with your Dad on a project. Whatever works for you, do it more often. Don’t wait for retirement or for when you have more time.

5. Intellectual interests – knowledge is power and power gives one a sense of confidence and happiness. Find out about what you need to know to live a good life, as you define it. Learn about managing your finances instead of letting money manage you. Find out about what you need to do to stay healthy. How will you provide care to your parents, spouse, children, friends, neighbors? Learn these things as you need them and teach others when they need the same knowledge and skills. Always look for the wonder in learning and teach what you learn to others. Inspire others through your experiences.

4. Physically move around to release natural endorphins that make you feel good and to act as distractions. Even if you are stuck in one place, find ways to move your body and at your earliest chance, move it in a different place (e.g., home, forest, beach, playground) to benefit from the change of scene as well.

3. Practice a life-affirming belief beyond yourself. Whether through religion, a more general spirituality or a love of nature, go beyond yourself so you have something to hold on to when you need that strength, courage, and persistence. Belief only in yourself or your family and friends may mean you do not have the resources to struggle through really difficult times nor the comfort of feeling part of something bigger and better.

2. Apply ancient wisdom – We are not alone. We are not the first people to try and figure out the meaning of life or how to live a good life. Learn what other people have concluded after lifetimes of study and experiences. We have so much more in common with people of different cultures and from different centuries.

1. Happiermoreoften now –  Put the other 9 rules to work starting now. Return to them often. Go to our website for further ideas, tips, reports on studies and to share your experiences with others. When you reverse the order of the rules above you will get a  HAPPIER MBS. This is a tongue-in-cheek way of saying there is so much BS in the world, find the true gems of how to enjoy your life everyday; more often, than you do now. When you do, you will be happier more often and have earned a Masters in Being Successful (MBS)! Congratulations!

1. H appier more often
   

2. A pply ancient wisdom
   

3. P ractice a life-affirming belief
   

4. P hysically move
   

5. I  ntellectual interests
   

6. E motional joy
   

7. R elationships – nurture and create new ones
   

8.     M usic
   

9.     B reathe slowly and deeply
   

10.     S mile and laugh more often!
    

There are so many ways of defining how to live your life. It is important that you create your own list based on the wisdom of others and what you know works for you.

Ancient Wisdom

There is no single right way to choose to be happier. Recognizing happiness as a choice will get you started!

Here are some ancient wisdoms that may also help you:

Wisdom #1: Relationships are more important than good health, great vacations, lots of money or prestige.

Wisdom #2: Words that divide us, harm us. There is no us and them – only us. We are all members of the human family and we cannot, nor should not, be divided by how we look or act or by what we achieve in life.

Wisdom #3: Love and happiness, like fear and hatred, are choices we make. Don’t let someone else tell you how to feel or how to live your life if these ways are harmful to others.

Wisdom #4: Concentrate on doing what is possible and doing that in positive ways. Do not concentrate on what is not possible as this drains your energy to do much of anything good in your life.

Wisdom #5: Learn from others who have spent their lives examining wisdom and how it applies to our daily living.

The Happiness Poster

Create your own poster defining happiness for you. Here is my sample.

H  ealthy balance of meeting my physical, emotional, spiritual and information needs

A  ttitude that says I can find ways to increase my happiness every day

P  hilosophy of life that looks for wonder, peace, joy, love, calmness and happiness on how to do good for goodness sake

P ersonal commitment to improve my capacity to laugh, love and learn

I  ntellectual commitment to continue my life-long learning

N urture all the important relationships in my life as nothing else really matters

E njoy more of life’s simple pleasures–a bit more each day

S piritually acknowledge a greater good, a higher order of things

S ucceed in this quest as I have never succeeded before!

How to Apply Happiness in the Workplace and at Home: Rules to Lead By

I use the following rules in teaching management and leadership development to front-line and senior managers. They really work!

1. 1.Say Hello to everyone who looks at you.
   

2. 2.Do not listen to or encourage gossip. It is usually wrong anyway.
   

3. 3.Do not let someone vent or complain about something more than once. If they want to work to resolve the situation; help them. If they just want to complain; ignore them and tell them clearly you do not want to hear the complaint again.
   

4. 4.f you do not tell someone they are doing something that angers or annoys you, you can’t blame them if they do it again.
   

5. 5.Do not listen to racist, sexist humor. Discourage others from using it.
   

6. 6.Discipline means to follow rather than to punish. So lead by example and through instruction.
   

7. 7.Use appropriate humor, laughter and playfulness to help make as many days memorable and energizing as possible.
   

8. 8.Be clear with expectations and praise–never begin a critique with a compliment. End some critiques with a compliment. That way, all compliments are accepted for what they are rather than a preamble to a list of problems or faults.
   

9. 9.People only hear or read 20% of what you are communicating and forget 80% of that within 24 hours. If you want them to remember something, communicate it more than once and in various ways. You are 100% responsible for effective communications. It would be nice if everyone took full responsibility for effective communications but it does not usually work that way. If it is important to you, you must take 100% responsibility.
   

10. 10.Someone has to begin the conflict resolution process–it is not fair that it is often you, but if the conflict is important enough, be first.
    

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Okay, just one more. This is addictive you know. As you can see, we could keep at this forever. There are so many rules for effective living.

One More List

For those of you who like lists, here is a last one of things you can do to find more happiness every day:

1. •Nurture your family and friend relationships more often.
   

2. •Nurture your sense of community more often. Meet your neighbors. Help them out. Learn from them.
   

3. •Nurture your spirituality.
   

4. •Nurture a gratitude attitude.
   

5. •Learn to relax your body’s muscles and your mind. Meditate, pray, learn deep relaxation techniques.
   

6. •Get enough sleep and exercise and eat well more often than not.
   

7. •Do your best at work and at play. Don’t just get by – get high on accomplishing new tasks and goals.
   

8. •Fake it till you make it. Pretending to be happy more often may actually lead your mind (which doesn’t distinguish reality from imagination) to release those wonderful mind chemicals that makes you feel more happy.
   

9. •Forgive more. Say please and thank you more.
   

10. •Smile more.
    

11. •Breathe deeply and slowly more often.
    

12. •Recognize that money doesn’t make happiness but a middle class income takes away some stresses.
    

13. •Get used to being silent and turning off the tv, stereo and other noise makers.
    

14. •Find a balance between love, gratitude and service. Find ways to go out of your way to help others. Make a difference in the lives of others and be grateful for all the help you receive.
    

15. •Slow down your life. Cut out some of the distractions that keep you from living. For example,  too much tv, reading, sports and such prevents you from actually talking and being with people.
    

16. •Savor your food and drink. Slow down how quickly you eat. Eat without doing anything else like watching tv. Concentrate on the food and the company.
    

17. •Try to eat at least one meal a day with your family. Family meals are a main determiner of successful children (success in school, socializing and life in general).
    

18. •Ask for and give more hugs, cuddles and hand holding.
    

19. •Laugh more often. You can even begin laughing just for the fun of it. You don’t actually need a reason to laugh. Just start. If you are with other people they will join in and then you have a reason to laugh together.
    

Begin now by writing your own list of top 10 rules then put them somewhere you can see them everyday. If you are not happy more often than you are now, go back to your list. This process is GUARANTEED to help you feel happier more often. It is an easy guarantee to make, because you control the results!

––––––––––––––––––––––

So the letter is over. I have enjoyed writing and rewriting this for you and hope that some of it is helpful to you.

May you find more happiness each day and may you share it with others. May you find simpler responses to complex situations. May you concentrate on what is possible in positive ways rather than concentrate on the impossible in energy-draining ways. May you share this book with others and compare notes so that we can all live fully until we die.

Gratefully and Happily yours (more often than I used to be anyway!),

Your friend,

Harry

Recognize that you already know what to do–now just commit to doing it!

Choose to be happier more often and help others do the same.

    References

    The following references are only a few of the many excellent resources that you can find in your local libraries and book stores. You can also look for journal articles, magazine reports, films, videos and audio cassettes. Keep in mind how much you can learn from the people you know. Talk to older and younger people.

    Also remember that your greatest expert is yourself....write a journal, look at yourself when you are happy and sad and find out why.

Brashich, Audrey D. (2006). All made up. New York: Walker and Company

A former beauty magazine editor and model, Brashich tells young girls and teenagers about how corporations define beauty and then make extraordinary profits selling beauty products and services. The emphasis should be, according to Brashich, on women of distinction rather than women with short-lived modelling careers.

Cousins, Norman. (1979). Anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient. New York: W.W. Norton.

    How this magazine editor overcame the traumas of a terminal illness using humor, laughter, old comedy films, while also taking personal control over his overall treatment and health. Includes interviews of Pablo Cassals and Albert Schweitzer.

Frankl, Viktor E. (1984). Man's search for meaning (revised and updated). New York: Washington Square Press.

    Story of the internationally known psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl's survival in Nazi concentration camps and his conclusion that our primary motivational force is our search for meaning.

Fulghum, Robert. (1986). All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. New York: Villard Books (Random House).

    Fulghum has had many different careers in his lifetime yet summarizes the main lessons of his life based on the simple principles learned in kindergarten.

Fynn. (1974). Mister God this is Anna. London: William Collins & Sons.

    Story of a young girl in East End London whose search for meaning, truth, beauty and goodness is aided by her friendship with Mister God. A timeless book of wonder about a young genius who lives a complete life in a few short years.

Levit, Rose. (1974). Ellen: A short life long remembered. New York: Bantam Books.

    A mother's story of the illness and death of her teenage daughter. It brings in the added emotions of her own divorce and the ex-husband's love for his daughter plus the love and tensions between Ellen and her older sister.

Miller, Merle. (1973, 1974). Plain speaking: An oral biography of Harry S. Truman. New

    York: Berkley Publishing Company.

A transcription of conversations between the former U.S. President and Miller examining many aspects of human nature and politics as experienced by the failed businessman from Independence Missouri who rose to become president, much to many people’s surprise.

O’Kelly, Eugene with Andrew Postman. (2006). Chasing daylight: How my forthcoming death transformed my life. New York: McGraw-Hill. Last chapter by his wife, after his death.

An autobiography by the Chair of KPMG Accounting firm in the U.S. of his last 3

months of life. Insightful in his examination of what is truly important in life

(relationships with loved ones) and how that can be balanced with a busy work life.

Popkin, Richard H. and Stroll, Avrum. (1956). Philosophy made simple. New York: Doubleday.

    An excellent overview of philosophy by two University of California philosophy professors. They write in fairly clear language and give information on such topics as ethics, methaphysics, and the philosophies of politics, religion, logic and modern philosophy.

Unger, Jim. (1982). Herman: For the hospitalized. Kansas City: Universal Press Syndicate.

    Only one sample among hundreds of the humor and enjoyment we can get from the unique perspective of life found in cartoons.

Acknowledgements

I have been very fortunate in my life to have many family members and friends share their ideas, beliefs and stories with me so I could learn from them as much as I learned through my own life experiences.

Naturally my parents were my greatest early teachers. They experienced war (World War II living in Holland just over the border from Germany), as a soldier for my father (Dutch army in Indonesia from 1947-1949), the poverty of those war years, immigrating to Canada with two young children and so much more. To say I am grateful for all they taught me does not begin to repay their countless gifts to me. I can only hope that my children feel as loved, supported, encouraged and comforted as I did for the years we were together.

My good fortune continued (after a dry spell during my teens and early twenties!) of meeting and marrying my best friend and kindred spirit, Janet Klees. To get to know a woman as a friend first and girlfriend later on is a wonderful opportunity. We could concentrate on getting to know each other personally without the baggage of first dates, intimacy expectations, etc. I highly recommend this route!

When you have lived for more than 50 years, there are hundreds of other people who have helped you become who you are. Some of them teach you what you need to learn. Others teach you, through their examples, of what not to do. Each provides an opportunity of acquiring or recognizing ancient wisdom that can help you live more happily.

Included in this large group for me are my many friends over the years, their families, my teachers, employers, work colleagues, neighbors, and media/cultural folks (e.g., writers, actors, musicians, artists, scientists, historians, adventures, explorers, photographers). Each leaves a mark–some conscious and many unconscious. I am grateful to them all!

Specifically, I am grateful to Diana Potts for reminding me that my long letter to family and friends for Christmas in 1990 helped her. She encouraged me to look at the letter again, revise it and publish it more widely. Stoney Kudel provided insights and revisions that have made the book better. Rick Spence, an exceptional business journalist and editor, has known about many of my other publications and said, Finally something happy! referring to my joy in writing books to help people who are dying and their families.

Diane Huson has provided support and encouragement and revisions for this book and many others. Her friendship over the past 26 years is invaluable and I am genuinely grateful.

My newest teachers are my children Bram and Joanna. Through each of their life phases I learn so much from and about them. I am fortunate to be able to spend many more of my daily hours with them than most parents. Not only do I do most of my work at home, my wife and I have also home schooled our children. To see them learn with such gusto, self-direction and joy is truly life affirming and a blessing. Thank you Joanna and Bram for teaching me so much about life and living and doing it with more happiness than I might otherwise.

About the Author

Harry van Bommel is the author of over 35 books. He speaks and gives workshops internationally about his many areas of interest. He has a Masters Degree in Adult Education but most of his learning has been self-directed. He is a founder of several organizations including:

1. •Biographers International Organization: BIO, a body to support independent and academic biographers around the world to share resources and skills for their mutual benefit.
   

2. •Canada 150, a project to encourage Canadians to record their life and community histories in time for Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017 (http://www.canada150.com).
   

3. •The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association: a national body supporting the work of professionals and volunteers in this field (http://www.chpca.net).
   

4. •The Hospice Association of Ontario: a provincial body concentrating on supporting community-based hospice palliative care (http://www.hospice.on.ca)
   

5. •Resources Supporting Family and Community Legacies Inc., an international non-profit organization that provides free online resources as well as eBooks and paperback books in the fields of caregiving, home and hospice care, community development, learning and helping people record their life and family stories. (http://www.legacies.ca)
   

6. •navCare, a national project to help patients and families navigate whatever health care systems exist in their communities using online resources, books, training programs and the use of Health Care advisors (http://www.navCare.org).
   

7. •PSD Consultants for the professional and personal development of workers, managers and leaders in such fields as health care, industry, manufacturing, government, education, social services and non-profit organizations. (http://www.psd-consultants.com)
   

A great deal of his understanding of happiness comes through his experiences of helping his parents and grandfather to live at home until they died. He has experienced many of the ‘downs’ of life including a business failure early in his career. He has also experienced many of the ‘highs’ including finding and marrying his kindred spirit, having two wonderful children and a few very good friends. His work in hospice palliative care, caregiving, management and staff development, helping people record their life stories and much more keep him grounded to what is important in life. Interviewing people at the end of their lives reminds him constantly that nurturing relationships is the key to any happy and successful life.

Mr. van Bommel’s books can be found at: http://www.legacies.ca where you can read them for free and/or buy either the electronic version or paperback editions for yourself and to give as gifts to your family and friends. More background information about him can be found at: www.harryvanbommel.com.

Mr. van Bommel can also be reached through writing to him at: harry@legacies.ca.

Check out www.happiermoreoften.com for more information, updated studies and special events related to this book.