How to Feel like a Teenager Again

How to Feel Like a Teenager Again

Written by Baz Gale

Copyright Baz. Gale

2014

Updated March 2021

https://www.facebook.com/BazGaleAuthor

http://www.bazgale.com

A book about Happiness

A healthy Mind, plus a Healthy Body will make you feel more youthful.

You will have more energy and more vitality

making you feel like a teenager again

Discover a new world, a world of Happiness and Love

Learn how to be Happy and also Healthy

A new and exciting YOU

Front and back cover Summer Fun Illustration from iStock photos, artist edge 69.

Photos taken by Baz Gale.

Thanks to Jamie and Sarah for helping with the Front cover layout.

ISBN: 978-0-6450603-5-5

No part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Please note: No reader should make any health decision without first consulting with his or her own personal physician.

How to Feel Like a Teenager Again

Part A

Happiness and the Mind

This section teaches you how the brain is responsible for your happiness and sadness and shows you ways to improve happiness leading to less stress and more energy. Feeling happier will make you feel younger and more attractive, and able to enjoy each new day with a zest for living.

Part B

Diet and Nutrition

You will learn the importance of healthy eating and how processed foods and sugar lead to disease. Healthy eating combined with some activity will give you a healthy body and mind into old age

Part C

Exercise for Life, Health and Vitality

A healthy and active lifestyle will give you more energy and also help to reduce stress levels, which will lead to an increase in your overall happiness.

This book is dedicated to you, the reader

May all your dreams come true

Contents

Part A: Happiness and the Mind

Would You Like to Feel Like a Teenager Again?

Introduction to Happiness

Writing the Book

Happiness

Choices

Live Life and be Happy Now

The Graveyard

Attitude

Gratitude

Words

People Should Come Before Material Things

Don't be a Victim

Attraction

Slow Down

Peace of Mind

Relationships

Look Inside Yourself

Happiness or Unhappiness

Part B: Healthy Eating and Healthy Living

Welcome to Part B

Reclaim Your Youth

Diet and Nutrition

Age is Just a Number

How to Lose Weight

Do Not Eat Low Fat Diets

Inflammation

Sugar

Eat Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

Eating Specific High Nutrition Foods

More Delicious Nutrient Dense Foods

Nutritious Fruits

Antioxidants

Vitamin D

Part C: Exercise for Health and Vitality

Staying Active

Exercises for improving health

Stand Up for Your Health

Why Watching TV is So Bad for You

Sleep

Summary of Book

Conclusion

Connect with Baz Gale

About the Author

My Garden

Other Books by Baz Gale

You’re Beliefs

Don’t make you

A better person

It is you’re Behaviour

Chapter 1

Would you like to feel like a teenager again?

Would you like to experience the unlimited and boundless energy teenagers seem to have?

What about experiencing the world around you with fresh eyes?

Imagine seeing nature and beauty everywhere, even in the middle of a city.

What about feeling relaxed, able to unwind and chill out at will, instead of holding onto all of life’s little problems?

And what about your health, wouldn’t it feel great to have a subtle and healthy body, saying goodbye to aches and pain?

When I say feel like a teenager, I do not mean hormones out of control, I am talking about feeling younger, refreshed, energized, youthful and able to tackle all of life’s problems with ease, not to allow stress to get you down and instead live life fully and openly without worry.

You might be a teenager reading this and wondering what is the point of reading any further. But life is very short, and the older we become the more we realise this. Our body begins to change between ages 25 and 28, we take longer to recover from illness, cuts and bruising take longer to heal, muscles begin to lose strength. But this can also be delayed and even stopped, because age is just a number, it is lifestyle that determines how we age and how quickly we age.

Looking after your mind and your body will go a long way in protecting you from future problems, and give you a high probability of a long and healthy life.

Many people from middle age onwards are on medication. Heart disease, diabetes, most cancer and other ailments many people succumb to are almost entirely self inflicted by lifestyle. Staying active with healthy eating and maintaining a good mental attitude will keep you youthful and retain your energy levels into old age, allowing you to enjoy all that life has to offer.

This book is about happiness, how to be happy and carefree, combined with nutrition advice, and also showing how important it is to be active.

Happiness means living a full and rewarding life and enjoying all that life has to offer, however this does require some effort and a change in our thinking. It requires a different mindset and a willingness to learn. But life is about learning, we are born naked and knowing nothing, and over a lifetime we acquire information, some good, some not so good, that sets us up for our lifetime journey. Learning continues to the grave, because we continue to absorb new information day after day, the brain continues to form memory right up to the day we die.

The secret to learning is absorbing and knowing how to use this information to our advantage.

This book is no different. All it takes is a wiliness to learn, and in no time many of the lessons in this book can become part of your life leading to a more happy and fulfilled life.

The choice is yours.

The book will cover many different topics because life is complex and to acquire lasting happiness change needs to occur on many different levels.

Part A talks about happiness and how doing small exciting things each day leads to daily happiness. It also covers relationships and love, relaxation and learning to let go of past emotions, and shows how to live a full happy life now, without worry or regret, in harmony with yourself and those around you.

Part B talks about health and offers ways to improve health through nutrition. Healthy eating not only improves your health physically, it also improves your mental health.

The research is showing that fruit and vegetable intake plays a potential role as a driver, not just of physical but also of mental well being. I talk about this in detail in part B and give some examples of highly dense nutritious fruits and vegetables.

Part C talks about being active, and gives examples of different exercises. Being active, doing some exercise also increases happiness by releasing endorphins that boost your mood. This also increases health and leads to a longer and happier life.

This book is showing you how to live a full and happy life without regret.

Do you want to feel like a teenager again?

Every great dream begins with a dreamer

Always remember, you have within you

the strength, the patience,

and the passion

to reach for the stars

to change the world

Harriet Tubman

Welcome to Part A

Happiness and The Mind

Health is the greatest gift

Contentment the greatest wealth

Faithfulness the best relationship

Chapter 2

Introduction to Happiness

Why are we here?

It doesn’t really matter how or why, what matters is we are here and here for a very short time, and while here we should do our best, for ourselves and to those around us, and to enjoy a happy and fulfilled life.

Life is short, so let’s make the most of our life and make this journey worthwhile.

Many books are written about happiness, and there are varying points of view on how to obtain happiness.

So, what is Happiness?

Happiness is not about always being happy no matter what, because life will give us challenges, struggles and disappointments, as well as laughter and good times. We are human, no one is perfect, we all make mistakes, and we all suffer at times. Sometimes it is better to feel the emotion of sadness and sorrow, to release the pain and anguish, because holding it inside will only create future problems.

The secret to a happy life is not about always being happy and smiling, it is about being able to recover quickly from things that frustrate and annoy us, and doing this will reduce the stress in our lives. Less stress means more happiness, and if we also balance our lives between work and play, doing what we enjoy rather than caught up in working long hours for more material things, then our lives will be mainly stress free and we will feel more relaxed, life will seem easier.

We are emotional beings, we express ourselves through emotion, we feel emotion, and our memories are really remembering the emotion (the feeling) we felt at the time. So keeping our emotions balanced, in other words controlling our emotions rather than our emotions controlling us, will go a long way towards a stable and happy life. The quicker we can recover and release any negative emotion we might feel, the less problems we will face in life because we will make better decisions, be more relaxed and our happiness, energy and vitality will increase.

An example of not allowing our emotion to control us is being cut off in traffic while driving, this can produce feeling of frustration, and some people even anger resulting in road rage. Or maybe someone said something you didn't like, and now there are feelings of anger, annoyed, upset, endless thinking creating stress and unhappiness. But when you can control your mind you will quickly release this negative emotion, not even care.

In first example just continue driving with the same feeling of happiness, maybe they made a mistake, or maybe just rude, it doesn't matter, what matters is feeling happy rather than frustrated and unhappy. In second example just let go what someone said because it is their reality, not yours. In fact the more you do this the easier it will become and one day very little will bother you, and your life will become bliss, happy and full of energy. Negative emotions take away your energy, even the energy of anger will eventually tire you, making you feel old, and lead to bad decision making.

Another thing that causes us problems in our present life is holding onto emotions from the past. Perhaps someone cheated on you, or lied to you, or did something else that hurt you; this can influence current thinking resulting in a loss of trust, insecurity, and many other emotions leading to unhappiness.

When we let go of negative emotions, and stop living in the past and instead learn from the experience, it will result in better decision making in the future.

Everyone makes mistakes, I have made so many I could not count them all. But by learning rather than blaming, there will be fewer problems in the future. Also by learning instead of dwelling on the problem, the problem will go away leading to increased happiness and less stress. By dwelling on what happened, and blaming instead of learning, we are running a high risk of the same thing happening again and again in the future.

The journey of life is about learning and growing, and over time we will make less and less mistakes. And as we learn to think and resolve why, instead of blaming and feeling sad, the quicker we will bounce back when confronted with new difficult and emotional experiences, making life easier and happier.

Feeling happier will result in more energy, thus allowing you to do new and exciting things and gain beautiful lasting memories.

Life will seem easier, fresher, and more vibrant.

You will indeed begin to feel like a teenager again.

Everything has beauty

But not everyone sees it

Confucius

Chapter 3

Writing the book

I have travelled to many countries, been to Africa and spent a lot of time in South East Asia, it is close to Australia, and have travelled all around Thailand, smiling people and amazing food. I love learning new cultures, experiencing a different way of life and meeting new people. This opens and expands my mind, making me a better person. It also makes me feel more youthful because each day is a new beginning, something new to see, to explore, and to do.

I have come to the Philippines to write and relax. I find it very peaceful here and I am also away from distractions at home. I can write anywhere, but this time I decided to write in another country and perhaps some of the experiences I have here can be used in this book.

It is beautiful, tropical and magical with friendly people and delicious food.

I also exercise each day by walking and exploring, and this day I decided to walk to the lookout in the mountain and take some photos. The view overlooks Samal Island where I am staying, and I have a great view of Davao City in the distant with the mountains rising steeply behind. And on clear days I can see Mount Apo, the highest mountain in the Philippines. It was perhaps a 20 kilometer return walk and in the hot sun, but what an amazing experience.

As I was walking up the mountain an old lady came out from a house and opened her arms. A young girl who lives on the opposite side of the road had gone to see her grandmother, and the grandmother waited, arms open, her mouth had the biggest smile. The little girl was greeted with a huge hug, a loving grandmother embracing her granddaughter. I witnessed the human emotions of unconditional love and gratefulness. All they knew at this moment was each other and love for each other. It was a touching site watching this frail old lady showing so much love and affection for her granddaughter and the granddaughter giving all her love to her grandmother.

They were poor, so poor both lived in a single room and very run down wooden house in the country side, and they would have had almost no material possessions. But they had love and they had each other and they had something that many people seem to be lacking, they had happiness. They were happy because happiness is created by the mind, created by showing and expressing love, compassion and gratitude. They were not thinking of themselves, the ego was not there, just love for another.

My point to this story is; we are all the same emotionally.

We are all human and we all have the same emotions.

The colour of the skin only reflects climate. Hot climates need a darker skin, dry desert climates need an almost black skin to protect from the sun, and cool climates need a white skin to allow the skin to absorb vitamin D from a cooler weaker sun, because vitamin D is needed to absorb calcium and without calcium the bones will become weaker. Many white people now live in hotter climates, and over time and many generations the skin will slowly become darker. The same with dark skin people now living in cooler climates, over many generations the skin will slowly become whiter. When we first left Africa about 100,000 years ago our skin was dark, and as humans spread around the planet the skin changed to reflect the warm or cool conditions where humans now live.

Yes, we are the same, and we all express the same emotions.

Do you remember running to your grandmother as a child?

The same affection felt towards you is the same affection I witnessed today. No one is better than anyone else. No country is better than another. The country you now call home did not even exist long ago? A country is nothing more than imaginary lines drawn in the ground and this will change, names will change, but what remains is humanity.

No matter where you live, where you work, what language you speak or religion you follow, you are human and you are the same emotionally as every other human on the planet.

Yes you are unique, no one else is you and no one else can be you, but this book is about happiness and happiness comes from our emotions, how we feel, and emotionally we are all the same.

We all crave love and happiness, family, security, and safety for our loved ones.

You might think you are smarter than a poor farmer because you live in a city, but without the farmer how would you eat. All types of people are needed to make humanity. All countries and races will have good and bad people, and more developed countries will have better education but this does not make you smarter, all it means is you are privileged. But having the education, the wealth, the technology, does not always make you happier. America is the richest country ever to exist, yet the use of anti depressants has increased over 400% during the last two decades, and around one in every ten Americans are taking an anti depressant. 23% of females above 40 are taking an anti depressant. These figures are alarming and are showing wealth does not make you happier.

I often travel around South East Asia, and I see societies with far less wealth, but I also see happy smiling faces. What do they have that wealthy countries seem to be lacking? They have family, strong family connections and a day would not pass without a family member calling and talking to another family member. The family structure is strong, the elderly are respected and looked after, not pushed away and forced to live in a nursing home. The elderly have wisdom gained from living a long life and this is respected. Being surrounded by family means you have support. You are not alone. You might not have a large car or a large house, but you have happiness.

Something else I am also seeing, as people in a developing country become wealthier, the smile often seems to vanish. Greed begins to take over, respect for the elderly becomes less, and they build large homes surrounded by high walls to keep people out, and loneliness begins to set in, combined with the attitude of needing more and more money to buy more and more material things. They become wealthy in material but poor in happiness. And worse, many now think they are superior and think the poor are stupid. In one country I often visit the wealthy do not even think the poor should be allowed to vote. Yet one or two generations ago these very same people were poor, how quickly they forget.

What is the solution?

Slow down

Bring gratitude back into your life; be grateful for what you have instead of always wanting.

Gain wisdom with knowledge based on love, compassion and understanding rather than always wanting and needing more, because this is only feeding the ego and the ego will always crave more.

Until this is understood, until we learn to educate ourselves that the mind and only the mind is responsible for our happiness and our sadness, nothing can change except our health, because stress and negative emotions will eventually lead to bad health. Stress has been shown to be the same as smoking and drinking each day, the damage is the same.

So, slow down.

Learn to live in the present moment, and live with compassion, understanding, and awareness, and you will be rewarded with happiness, better health, more energy, more vitality, and a more youthful you.

Just do it

The top of the Mountain

After leaving the emotion I witnessed from a frail old grandmother towards her young granddaughter, I continued walking up the never ending road, well it seemed to go on forever, and finally I reached the top and the lookout. I was rewarded with the most awesome view over the ocean and the distant mainland with the mountains rising in the distance.

As I stood there looking and taking in the majestic beauty my eyes were experiencing, I was soon joined by four young men with mountain bikes. They looked as exhausted as me and very soon we began chatting, taking photos, and exchanging Facebook details. These four young men are living the life they love and enjoy, getting out and experiencing new and exciting things together. Today they left Davao City at 5 am, catching the ferry to Samal Island, and begun riding their mountain bikes, riding across the Island to where I am staying, and then riding up the exhaustive road leading to the lookout.

These were happy young men full of adventure, happiness, a love of life and a love of doing new, new adventures, new exploring, just getting out and doing. This is what living is all about, enjoying life and living life to its full capacity. It doesn’t take much money, the only investment here was a mountain bike, but the rewards and adventures these young men are having will create long lasting happy memories that will last a lifetime.

This is what the book is all about. These young men are living the dream, not sitting home complaining or letting life slip by, they are out there enjoying life, they are full of energy, well when I first met them they were the same as me, totally exhausted after riding up the mountain... but soon we all recovered and swapped stories, talked, laughed, and took photos.

They told me about their 5 day hike up and down Mount Apo, the highest mountain in the Philippines. They even camped on top for two days. What an amazing experience.

Mount Apo has an elevation of 3,144 meters, or 10,311 feet above sea level. It towers majestically over the vast expanse of Mindanao Island, bordering over the mountainous edges of Davao City, a large city with a population of 1.4 million people.

Mount Apo gives breathtaking views of various volcanic formations, craggy rocks scapes, and rich forest lands of Davao City, Davao del Sur and North Cotabato. It is a flat topped mountain with three peaks, and it is capped by a 500 meter wide (1,600 feet) volcanic crater containing a small crater lake. Its base covers about 72,796 hectares of mountain range covered by a forest of tall, tropical hardwoods. Mount Apo national park features numerous peaks and valleys, as well as Malasita falls, Sibulao Lake and the Kisinte Hot Springs.

A beautiful area to explore and visit and I plan to one day climb Mount Apo also.

After becoming friends on Facebook, what do I see as the Facebook logo of my new friend?

Live life to the fullest

And as soon as I look at the timeline what do I see?

Don't be afraid to change, you may lose something good but you may gain something better

I look at many photos of their adventures and always I see happy smiling faces. They are enjoying life to the full, living their life the way they want to live it. Yes, they work and study, but use their spare time to go on adventures and enjoy life.

Remember you can gain new and exciting experiences lasting a lifetime anywhere, anytime, in any country, and I often go bike riding in Australia, it costs very little to have fun. They were riding mountain bikes, not limousines; however I am sure these boys were happier and maybe healthier than most people sitting in a limousine.

They were young men, full of energy, exploring life, each day a new beginning, full of adventure and excitement. And this is what this book is about. We will age and develop patterns over time that will slow us, and affect our health. We will form patterns in what we do, repeating day by day over and over, never changing, never learning, becoming old combined with failing health. The happiness we experienced when we were younger, when each day was a new beginning, will slowly fade; life will be a repeat of the previous day.

You do not need to live like this.

You can change.

You can regain the same spark, the same youthful energy.

It is up to you, to change and release the old built up patterns that exist, or continue the same. But if you continue as you are, can you honestly say you are truly happy.

Do you still have the youthful energy that you felt in your youth?

Does life seem difficult?

Do little things annoy you, upset you, and make you angry?

Can you just relax and enjoy, feel bliss in just doing nothing?

Or is the brain in constant thinking mode?

Did you know there was a huge study done tracking people all over the world on their happiness level throughout the day? There was a large amount of data using over 15,000 people with a wide variation in age, income, education and material status. There were over 650,000 reports to analyze and they represented over 86 occupational categories and over 80 different countries.

The area of study was on mind wandering we also call day dreaming, when our thoughts take us away to another place while at work, play, home, it did not matter, the study was about how our thinking affected us and if it changed our happiness. Daydreaming is really thinking, the brain is thinking and taking us somewhere else, we are not here; instead we are where our thoughts have taken us. Some people in this study even said they think while having sex, the thinking can be this strong and this addictive.

The study was divided into two parts, happy thoughts and unhappy thoughts.

In all cases people who began thinking unhappy thoughts, day dream unhappy experiences, while at work or anywhere else, affected and lowered their happiness, no surprise here. The study also found that most people tend to have unhappy thoughts; their day dreaming was normally negative.

But... the study also found that even when we had happy thoughts, our day dreaming was a happy experience, once back in reality, after the experience of day dreaming or thinking because it is really thinking, the happiness level was also lower. Not as much as unhappy thoughts, and happy day dreaming only lowered the overall happiness a few percent, but it was still lower.

I suspect the reason happy thoughts still make our overall feeling of happiness less is because we might be thinking of where we would sooner be, having adventures, or maybe romance, and when we return to reality we are wanting to be where our day dream was happening, rather than our present situation.

So, thinking instead of doing, even when this thinking was happy, still had an overall drop in happiness.

When I say thinking, there are different types of thinking. I was thinking while eating dinner to add something to this chapter I had just written, so my thinking was productive and did not affect the way I felt. A doctor might think how to do the best for a patient; a farmer might be thinking how to cut down that old tree without damaging something. So when I say thinking, I am referring to day dreaming, lost in thought, when our thinking takes us to another place, when the thinking affects our emotions and influences how we feel.

There is also another situation being shown here, and this is very much what this book is about, a way to show you how to change the thinking in order to become more happy and youthful.

The study suggests most thinking or day dreaming is negative. It is showing that when our life is not full and happy we tend to daydream more than when we are happy. Unhappy or negative people tend to think more than happy people. But, because thinking tends to make us unhappy, the very act of allowing the mind to wonder and think is also creating our unhappiness. In fact the very reason many people might be sad, angry, frustrated, annoyed and upset, is often a direct result of negative thinking. 

It is our negative thinking, focusing on unhappy events, that is actually creating the unhappiness in our life.

So, what does this mean?

It is saying we need to be in control of our life.

Our thoughts do dictate our life, and our thinking, especially when consumed on past or unpleasant events, or worry about future events, or thinking about someone and what they said, whatever the thinking, it is always about the self.

Thinking about oneself is really feeding the ego, we are self consumed and this is creating unhappiness in our life, robbing us of energy, vitality, and taking away our youth making us old. The thoughts might not even be real, because the more upset we become, the worse everything appears to be, because we are only looking at the negative and not seeing the positive or the whole picture. Plus our brain will distort our reality, and our imagination can go overboard, making us think things that do not even exist. Negativity seems to feed on negativity.

What is the solution?

The solution is to learn, to educate ourselves on the mind, and create change.

Learn compassion and regard for others. Helping people means we stop thinking about ourselves, thus making us happier.

Learn to change the thinking, learn to stay in the present moment, and learn to live with compassion, gratitude, and love, and the rewards are endless.

You will be rewarded with a new zest for living, increased health and energy, a return of the youthful spark we all had when we were teenagers, and a life of happiness.

You can change with just a small amount of effort.

The time to change is now.

Now is the time to regain that youthful spark, time to reignite that zest for life, and time to live with no regret.

Time to feel like a teenager again.

Two things to remember in life

Take care of your thoughts

When you are alone

Take care of your words

When you are with people

Chapter 4

Happiness

Just go outside, and enjoy the sunshine

What would make you happier in the long term if one of these two things happened to you?

You win the lottery

You become a paraplegic losing your legs

Well, there is research data on this and after one year the happiness level is the same.

Surprised!

This is because our expectations are always wrong. We expect more to happen but the reality is things do not change that much. Obviously losing your legs will change your life; however I am talking about your happiness level.

We expect great change to happen with things like political elections, promotions, medical tests, romance, and so on; we think there will be more change but things tend to stay how they were in the long term.

Most life changing things that happen in life, after a few months, do not affect our happiness level. Why? Because happiness is created by the brain, we create our own happiness and sadness and life changing events do not impact on our happiness level after a short period of time because we adapt to whatever situation arises.

Whatever the situation, our brain will adapt and our happiness level will remain the same.

Happiness is always created by the brain no matter what the situation; it is nothing more than chemicals released by the brain that flow through our blood to every cell in our body, creating a feeling of happiness.

The joy we experience in catching up with an old friend, laughing together and enjoying each other’s company or the sensation of watching your team win, or the laughter and happiness expressed at a family reunion dinner, is the same happiness felt when winning the lottery, buying a new car, a bigger home.

I have never won the lottery so I cannot say for sure personally. I had better buy a ticket to see how true this research is.

The point of all this is to show you that the happiness we feel, no matter the situation, is nothing more than the chemicals giving us the emotion of happiness. But we also feel this same happy emotion without having to win anything, without having to gain something. The happiness we experience walking hand in hand with our lover, watching the sun set together, playing with our children, and a thousand other things that cost nothing, produce the same feeling. In fact the happiness we obtain that costs nothing is generally longer lasting because it tends to happen more frequently.

Why would the happiness from helping another, making someone smile, playing with your children, be longer lasting than buying that new dream home?

Because the happiness we experience when we get what we want is only ever short term, and the experience soon wears off and we then require obtaining something else in order to feel happy. On the other hand, the happiness we can obtain daily that costs nothing is always there for us.

All we have to do is reach out and take it.

Too many people seem to think they need something to be happy, a bigger house or new car, and yes it will make you happy for a short time. But this can also trap you if you are not careful, because many people do fall into the consumerism trap.

It can be difficult to escape consumerism, and companies advertise effectively showing us we need their product in order to be happy, because they need to make a profit. And there will always be something bigger and better you need.

Bigger and better does not always mean happier.

To experience daily happiness requires lots of little things that make you happy. And when your mind is always focused on the big thing, and you work long hours, spending time apart from your family, your children, your friends, you miss all the little things in life. And it is these little things that produce most of the happiness. So you eventually obtain what you want, but with happiness nothing more than a chemical released from the brain, over time the feeling fades.

Suddenly you need to obtain more in order to return that happy feeling, almost like an addiction.

Someone not focused on wealth and need and is actually happy with what they have in life, is experiencing all the little things on a daily basis that produce happiness. They are having many different experiences producing happy memories because they are happy in themselves and do not require more to be happy. And when more does come, or wealth increases, they know how to use this to obtain even more exciting and happy experiences.

This is why longer and more lasting happiness is obtained by experiences, having many small and exciting experiences producing lots of happy memories.

We do not need to buy things in order to feel happy. And if we take the path of consumerism to feel happy we will never obtain lasting happiness. But if we can learn and understanding that happiness is produced by the brain, we create our own happiness just as we also create our own sadness, then we will understand that our wanting and our worries are both over blown because we have in us the capacity to manufacture the very thing we are chasing.

By choosing to do lots of little things that make you happy like catching up with friends, going on adventures, family outings, doing what you enjoy and what makes you laugh, will actually lead to lasting happiness. But wanting and needing more material things, thinking this will make you happy, will only lead to stress.

Understanding that things do not change as much as we think will slow our ambition of needing more, allowing us to live in the present, today, happy and free.

The problem with having too much ambition based on thinking great changes will happen is it distorts our thinking. We can become obsessed with wanting something, and this can make us do almost anything in order to obtain what we want. Some people even become dishonest; they cheat, steal, hurt other people and sacrifice things of real value. Things like never seeing their children grow. Too much wanting can decline your moral judgement making you do almost anything to succeed, and you can even convince yourself that what you are doing is right. But great change just does not happen, things do not change that much, and the end result can be misery.

Our life, our feeling, and our happiness just do not change that much no matter what we obtain.

Understanding this will help to alleviate our worries, the fear of not obtaining what we think we need will dissipate.

Understanding the brain, and understanding where our wanting and needing comes from, becoming aware and gaining this knowledge and wisdom, will go a long way in producing a more happy and joyful life.

It is not always easy to let go the need for more because not only is consumerism telling us we need more to be happy, society also seems to be based on wealth where we praise and worship those that have made wealth. We look up to them, want to be like them. We look down upon those poorer than ourselves. But a society based on greed rather than compassion will one day crumble just as all great societies have done in the past.

In many cases to obtain great wealth means cheating, lying, corruption in paying government officials and some of the worst traits humanity can produce will be among the very rich. Not all are like this; some are very talented people, especially some of the software developers and creative people like artists, musicians and actors. Others have acute business skills yet still have compassion and help those less fortunate than themselves. But there are many excessively rich people looked upon by society with respect when the things done to obtain great wealth are anything but respectable. So society also tends to create the need to obtain more and more, to gain status, leading to more and more unhappiness. The only winners are the pharmaceutical companies who are making large profits selling anti depressants.

The other side are the people who work tirelessly helping those that need help. They struggle on limited funding and income, and can even be looked down by society as having not made it. But what they have made is happiness, because helping others creates self happiness.

When you are thinking of others, helping others, not only are the rewards immense in self satisfaction, but you are also not self obsessed. With the ego kept in balance happiness is the end result.

Compassion is also the path to happiness.

When we understand, accept, forgive, love, we have balance, harmony, and happiness.

Changing the thinking, from one of greed and want that is about feeding the ego, to one of compassion and understanding, will result in a happier and emotionally more balanced individual.

When you become more emotionally balanced due to increased happiness in your life, you make better choices, resulting in an improved life. By enjoying life now, and not worrying about consumerism because your life is happy now, you are actually allowing more to enter your life. It is like a compounding effect, as more things enter your life creating even more happy memories; you just become happier and happier.

Life very much is a choice, and generally this choice will be made by your attitude to life.

So, slow down, enjoy life and be happy today. No need to kill yourself obtaining status just to gain respect, better to have self respect. You are beautiful, individual, talented, wonderful, and part of humanity.

Life really is short so let’s enjoy the short time we are here with love, happiness, laughter and good times.

Stress will send you to an early grave, happiness will go a long way towards a long healthy life.

Be Happy.

Life is really simple

But men insist on making it complicated

Confucius 

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