In a recent post to his blog, Jack’s Winning Words, Jack shared this saying from Buddha –
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
If you start each day by getting yourself in the right frame of mind – a happy frame of mind, why nor share that with those that you meet. You can be the candle from 
which a thousand other people light their candle and it will not diminish you own happiness one bit. In fact, if you pay attention to the happiness that you might bring to others that will make you even happier.
I have a friend who bills himself as a “Happiness Coach”. Who knew that you needed a coach for happiness? Like many other things in our busy, high-tech, day to day lives; I guess happiness can get lost in the rush towards whatever it is that we think we are pursuing. For most that involves their job and success at work. The focus and intensity that many put on their job and being successful through hard work there definitely can detract from family and other elements of their life, often to the detriment of their happiness.
It is important to realize that happiness in life is not obtained by success at work or the accumulation of money and possessions. Happiness starts with being happy with being you and then extends outward to the joys of sharing that happiness with others. If you cannot get comfortable and happy with who you are as a person, you will be unable to interact with others in a way that makes you and them happier. You must first be able to say, “I like me” before you can say “I like you” to someone else.
Perhaps that is what my friend the Happiness Coach does with the people that he works with. He must first get them to light their own candle of happiness with themselves, before they can go out in the world to share that light and make others happy, too. I’m sure that he also advises them on how to share their happiness with those around them, especially their spruces and families.
A key component of becoming happy with yourself is to stop beating yourself up, to forgive yourself for any past failures or faults. The best way that I know to accomplish that is to get right with God first. If you establish a strong belief in God then you accept that God forgives you all of your sins and faults, and accepts you the way that you are. Once you accept His forgiveness it is easier to forgive yourself and move on. You can tell the coach to put you in the game. You will have lit your candle 
and now you can focus on sharing your light with others.
Perhaps you could get yourself in that happy state of mind by starting each day with a little prayer time, to reestablish your link to God. There’s a cute little song that you might have learned in Sunday School that starts the words “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” Be the candle from which others draw their light.
Don’t worry…be happy! Get right with God. Get right with yourself. Let your light shine today.
Posted by Norm Werner 
you start out on your day. It may help put a smile on your face and that will start the process of making the world a happier place.
happy if only I had this new car or that bigger house or whatever shiny thing we see on TV”. Maybe we think that happiness awaits us at that next promotion level at work. Whatever it is; it nags at us and keeps us unhappy. For some there is unhappiness in their personal relationships because they have a nagging feeling that they would be happier with someone else.
us further and further away from God. We must stop and re-center ourselves back on our faith in God.
but thy will be done” or do you set your jaw and head out determined to face the world and its problems on your own? No matter what level of unhappiness you have sunken to, God is that beacon of light that you can still see off in the distance. Head towards His light. Happiness lives there.
direction that can lead to anxiety, loneliness and depression. That, too, is a direction and not a destination. You really don’t want to get to the way stations in that direction. There may also be stops at frustration, anger, remorse and other nasty places in that direction.
people’s lives.” She doesn’t call herself a “coach”, but that is what she is doing through her writings and personal sessions with people.
medicines or trying to play the role of a psychologist or psychiatrist. Using a coach is like having a good talk with your mom or dad when you were a kid; only now you’re grown up and maybe you don’t really want to share your problems with mom or dad. Your coach takes on the role of parent or good buddy, but without the embarrassment factor. That allows them to talk straight to you about things that you may need to change, things that you are doing wrong that are screwing up your life and have you headed in the wrong direction.
towards a much better place.
stupid things that we should have known better not to do. Sometimes life throws a curve ball at us and we react badly. Most of those times result in some amount of our time being spent in an unhappy state of mind. We may be sad or angry or frustrated or disappointed, but we are not happy.
relieves some of the pain of the sadness of a lost or a disappointment, but does it change anything? Let the moment pass. Let go of the thing that is effecting you and move on. Step back and laugh at yourself…run to the next window.
These events could have been personally devastating for her; but, she has a great attitude and is viewing it as an opportunity to do something new and different. Was she initially bummed? Yes, who wouldn’t be. But, rather than wallow in self-pity and walking around complaining about how unfair life can be; she has decided to see this as an opportunity. She has accepted it better, and probably has a better attitude about it, than the people who were her clients in the old business. She is running to the next window and is actually excited about the new adventure. What a great attitude and reaction to the things that life has thrown her way. I’m sure that everyone who knows her will support her in her new career.
comes next…you can run to the next window of happiness.
perpetually disgruntled nay-sayers that you run into from time to time whose mission in life seems to be to try to bring all of those around them down to their level of unhappiness. If these people held the winning ticket in the lotto they would be unhappy that the prize wasn’t bigger when they won.
gone by, it is not good to fixate on those closed doors rather than looking for the open doors and relationships that are still available. Ruing the day when a mistake that you made caused a relationship to go bad will not change the fact that it has changed and perhaps ended forever. Learning from that mistake will help you avoid souring other relationships in the same way in the future. Learn and move on through the open doors to happiness that are still available to you.
happiness have first come to understand their relationship with God and have accepted that He has a plan for their lives that will take care of them. They have surrendered their egos to the will of God and have found happiness in His embrace.
completely absorbed in) that will make you happy. I’ve noticed that many people are most happy when they are completely absorbed in their family life; when being with, and participating in things with, their wives and children take away any cares of the world and they just enjoy the moment and the experiences with family.
dmittedly, it is a somewhat rare and perhaps a fleeting experience; but think of the last time you and your loved ones had a great group experience together and how happy that made you feel. Maybe it was a family pillow fight on a weekend morning, or maybe the fun of a visit to an amusement park or the zoo. There’s nothing that can make you happier than everyone in the family laughing and having fun together while doing something together. Not only are you completely absorbed by the experience, but you also get to share in and draw from the happiness of others in the group experience.
takes on the characteristics of a job for you. It’s also important to maintain control of yourself within the pursuit of a hobby/sport, so that it doesn’t start to take over your life or get way out of hand. Many times on the TV show American Pickers, they show people who have crossed over the line from collectors to hoarders, some of whom eventually recognize that and are trying to pull back from had become an obsession and regain control of their collection hobby. In sports we have probably all encountered the uber-competitive fanatic for whom the sport has become totally a win-lose proposition, rather than a pleasant and enjoyable pastime. There is often more frustration than happiness to be found in that approach to sports.
with them about why they do what they do, why they spend the hours or toil away behind the scenes on jobs with little public recognition for their efforts; they will usually tell you that it makes them feel good; it makes them happy. There’s lots of business advice that says doing the jobs that no one else wants to do is a good way to succeed in business. I think that it is good advice for life in general and your reward in life is a payoff in happiness. Sometimes you are the only one who knows that you did some of those things; but, knowing that you did allows you to make your own happiness from the effort and the success.
you find the happiness from inside? The power to create your own happiness is within you. Find those things in which you can become completely absorbed – a family activity, a hobby, a sport, service to others, whatever – and lose yourself in it. You will experience happiness as a by-product.
career and the need to make more and more money, that one forgets the important things in life – why and for who they are supposedly doing it. All too often it is the parting embrace of the father-daughter dance at her wedding that a father realizes his little girl has grown up and that he missed most of it, because he was so hard at work. Perhaps it is when his son drives away with his bride that the father stops to reflect on years of missed ball games and lost opportunities for father-son bonding.
people who fall into that trap find out that the most important roles that they ever had in life were husband and father. At least Dorson recognized that enough to plan Daddy Days when he was home.
the foundation upon which your life is based. The boat will almost certainly try to float away and take you from that foundation. It is tempting sometimes to just jump into the boat and see where it takes you and you may not even look back at the dock until it is out of sight. It takes a stronger person to keep a foot on/in both and not let the boat drift away with you in it. If you really think about it; everything that you really want and cherish is on the dock and not in the boat; so, never give up your foothold there.
finds God first, He will give you the wisdom to see the important things in life and show you the right path to take.
In today’s find it now, buy it now, do it now world, having the patience, the perseverance and faith to wait for that greater happiness goes against the grain. We have become an instant gratification society, while religion has remained a “hope for it, pray for it, wait for it” practice.
we need to substitute much more believing, in place of all of the effort we make to try to understand the unimaginable. We can’t and don’t need to understand, we just need to believe and accept. Once we let go of the things of this life, we are ready for the things that come in the next. It is sort of like those cute ads for the web site LetGo.com; we have to let go of the things we don’t really need any more for this life and certainly not for the next. If I can let go of the baggage of this life and just believe; I’ll be better prepared to experience the promised greater happiness – maybe I’ll even experience a little of it here. What a wonderful thought that is to focus upon today.
that, whether it be clean water or electricity for their home or the many other things that people believe are somehow “owed” to them. Somehow the things that we should be thankful for have become expected, even proclaimed as rights. Even the rights that we have that were enshrined in our Constitution were extended to us by the consensus of the people at the time they were written and were not somehow innate.
whether to be happy with what we have now, even while perhaps striving for more or newer or bigger or better somehow. I have learned from experience that the attainment of most of those strivings brought much less satisfaction or joy than I initially imagined it would. It’s just another thing or a bigger thing; but still just a thing.
The other big choice in my life that really worked out was choosing to allow Jesus into my life. Sure, I went through the period of doubt or disbelief that most people do in their youth. I went through the “Going through the motions” period, too; where going to church was more of a social event or just another task to get through at the end of the week.
moment I reached out in desperation and Jesus was there to reach back to me, take my hand and lead me out of that pit. I have found comfort ever since in the little prayer that I said that night – “Not my will, but thy will be done.”
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