Happiness

In this life you either decide to be happy or not.  Every morning when I wake up I deliberately press my inner ‘happy button’ to remind me that it’s my choice to be positive about life and happy.

When I look into the mirror I smile – even with my old wrinkly countenance it looks infinitely better wearing a smile.  And the eyes twinkle with a genuine smile raising ‘positive chi’.  Anyone is better looking with a smile and a twinkle in their eye and definitely more pleasant to be with.

We are not independent but interdependent.  We are connected to everyone and everything around us, this universe exists exactly as it does because we are exactly like we are and we are exactly like we are because the universe is exactly like it is.  Whatever we do changes all things for all time.  So which way do we want the universe to go?

We have the power to influence ourselves and everything around us, our power to be happy and positive is a powerful step in that direction, creating good karma.

The major cause of illness is stress and unhappiness.  The more ill you get the unhappier you get.  The unhappier you get, the more ill you get.  Itís a negative cycle that needs to be broken.  And sometimes that first smile is the first step to well being.

A good Martial Arts club encourages a positive frame of mind.  If it’s full of negativity and aggression – get out – because that’s the habits that you will learn.  Look at the Instructor, is he happy and positive? – Because this is the person that you are going to learn from.  Look at the senior grades – what habits are they learning?  By looking at them you can foresee what habits you will learn..

A good club should contain good people at the top end.  They should encourage the students.  Everyone in the club is a stakeholder.  From Chief Instructor to the beginner student, everyone is putting something in to get something out.  A good Chief Instructor will ensure that he/she is maximising the benefits expected by everyone. By ensuring that everyone’s expectations are realistic to the effort put in and then encouraging them to maximise them with enthusiasm and a positive outlook the club will do well long term.

Learn to see and bring out the positive in everyone around you.  Develop a good sense of humour, as that will help to see you through the bad times and help you to enjoy the good.  Laughter really is the best medicine!

There will always be people that hate you if you are good at what you do and are popular.  I can’t believe how negative so many Martial Arts Instructors can be!  Why knock each other?  We aren’t competing; we should be working together to project the positive image of Martial Arts in our locality – not bitching about each other!  I constantly get ‘gossip’ about Instructors that say this and that and they are so busy knocking everyone else that they can’t see how the negativity affects everyone around them.  And invariably they are unsuccessful, because the successful ones are too busy just getting on with it!

So even a club is a body that can get ill, infected with stress, anger, jealousy and unhappiness and as in the physical body where does it come from?  The head!!!!

Bertrand Russell said:

Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else.  If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself also to seeing others happy.  Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other peopleís happiness and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.

There is the false smile and happiness that can be irritating to others, because its so false, although to a certain extent you also have to fake it to make it to develop happy habits..  I would suggest maybe practising a quiet happiness to begin with would be better.

The Dalai Lama said that everyone is seeking happiness, and shallow happy just doesn’t cut it because there will be a corresponding unhappiness to match  but there is a deeper form of happiness, one that arises with the wisdom mind that is far more permanent and satisfies the soul.  He said:

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.  That is clear.  Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better in life.  So I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness,

So, to explore what kind of happiness is important.  I feel that the deepest happiness comes from contributing.  A Martial Arts club is the perfect place for that.  You can contribute to your own health and happiness and that of those around you in the club by helping everyone to learn.  It is said that the only time you should look down on someone is when you give them a helping hand upwards and Martial Arts gives you that opportunity.

It is highly rewarding to watch as students of all ages become stronger physically and mentally.  To watch them develop patience, tolerance, kindness and compassion.  To see them contributing to the structure of the club and the community around them.  It is at that point that you realise HOW happiness spreads. It’s not only the infectious smile but as people realise that the world is not just a violent drug ridden desert, that it’s not just ‘war out there’ but in fact there are more people with the better qualities of life who understand how to function as a community.

There is a story of a traveller who was watching an old man sitting by a well, another traveller came to the well for a drink and asked the old man what the people in the next town were like, the old man asked him what they were like in the town that he had just come from.  He replied, they were awful, violent, mean and jealous!  The old man replied that they were the same in the town he was travelling to.  Later, another traveller came to the well and asked the same question the old man again asked what the people were like in the town that he had come from.  They were wonderful, friendly, happy and helpful people he replied.  The old man said that that is exactly what the people in the next town were like.

The moral being that the rest of the world is normally a reflection of what you are on the inside.

Remember that no person or situation can make you unhappy or happy.  Only YOU can do that!

So when you get out of bed in the morning.  press that happiness button.  And when you look at yourself in the mirror.  SMILE!