Happiness = (Life’s Events You Can Control + Life’s Events You Can’t Control) + Your Response
Crafting an Empowering Response
The Neurolinguistic Programming Approach
THERE IS NO FAILURE, ONLY FEEDBACK.
In Part I of The Happiness Equation, we looked at the three components of the formula:
Those are the different variables of the Happiness Equation. If you can manipulate and control those variables, you can maximize the happiness you experience in your life. It’s as simple as that.
Well, OK, . . . maybe there is a bit more to it than that. But you get the picture. If you can think of things in terms of those you can control and those you cannot and then fashion your response accordingly, you will stand a much better chance of enjoying what life gives you.
This part of the Happiness Equation focuses on those life’s events that you cannot control.
Life’s Events You Cannot Control
Life inevitably deals us cards that we simply have no control over. We are born to certain parents. We grow up in a particular country. We inherit certain genes from our ancestors. We are born to a particular ethnicity. Our parents were poor. Our parents were alcoholics. The list goes on and on.
And the there are those life events that just seem to happen and that we are totally helpless to control. A tsunami destroys our village. A recession kills our business. A zoning by-law causes our property value to plummet.
These are all variables that we have absolutely no control over.
Too many of us agonize and fret over things that we have absolutely no control over. We constantly remind ourselves of the bad things that have happened to us in the past. We fight those items in our present reality when we have no real ability to change them. We lose sleep over what fate may bring us tomorrow including items that we have no ability to manipulate. And it is all for naught because by definition these things we worry about cannot be controlled.
We expend precious energy and work ourselves up into a real frenzy about how a particular reality is not right, unfair and just doesn’t work.
The Solution
So, what do we do in the face of life events that we really have no control over?
The Answer: WE ACCEPT THEM.
We have to learn to stop fighting what is and cannot be changed. Instead, accept it. Embrace it. Or at the very least, make the best of it. By definition, it cannot be changed. So any effort or energy spent ultimately resisting that reality is lost, or worse, will serve only to frustrate, sadden and anger you.
Instead, channel that energy into crafting a powerful response to that life event.
In Part III of The Happiness Equation, we will look at how to control the response that you attach to life’s events.
Till next time . . .
Make each day count!
Pat Filice
Wouldn't it be great if you could achieve happiness with mathematical precision? I mean, wouldn't it be so easy if you could boil down the components of happiness into a single equation that you could manipulate and manage to achieve everything that you want in life? You could identify which variable is working and which is not and just change those components that are not functioning properly.
Result - a perfectly functional life filled with joy and happiness – all with mathematical precision!
While happiness is not an exact science and does not lend itself to strict formulaic calculation, I have formulated an equation for happiness that can be a very useful tool for understanding the nature of happiness and to guide us in making meaningful changes to explode the quality of our lives. Here it is!
Happiness = Life's Events + Your Response
That’s it! Nothing more to it than that. Happiness is a function of life’s events and your response to life’s events.
Ok, ok, you want more. Let me break this down a little bit further and then elaborate.
Happiness = (Life's Events You Can Control + Life's Events You Can't Control) + Your Response
Enough with the math you say! How does all this help you in your quest for happiness? Very simple! If you understand each of the three components to happiness, you can then begin to manipulate or change that component and create the change and happiness that you want to see in the world.
Life’s Events You Can Control
Many of life’s events are a direct result of your own actions, at least to some degree. Your mark on next week’s math test is to a very large extent directly within your power. So is your relationship with your child, whether you go to work or not tomorrow or whether you take up piano lessons.
For those things that you can in fact exercise some degree of control over, do just that! Take control and do what is necessary to bring about change.
Two things are important here:
In Parts II and III of The Happiness Equation, we will look at Life’s Events you Can’t Control and Your Response.
Till next time . . .
Make each day count!
Pat Filice
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Jim Rohn
Release Date: September 30, 2013
Contact: Edwin Edebiri, CHO
Email: Edwin@Iamhappyproject.org
Telephone: 415-377-6590
Website: www.iamhappyproject.org
Davis, California – The “I Am Happy Project” is launching a mobile app called the “Happy Button” to help users improve their health, relationships, work and life by boosting their happiness. The app is free and will be available for download on October 1.
The Happy Button app has several functions to help users to boost happiness:
Chief Happiness Officer (CHO) Edwin Edebiri is excited about the Happy Button app and its potential to help users around the world: “Many circumstances in life can’t be controlled. Since most people (about 85%) have their smartphone or tablet with them most of the time, a happiness boost to your day is just a click away with the Happy Button app. Even better, you can help spread happiness by sharing the app with others!”
Pat Filice is one of the twenty life and business coaches participating in the Happy Button app. Pat is the creator of the Manifest-8 Life System (www.manifest-8.com), a simple 8 step process for taking complete control of your life and manifesting all the happiness your heart desires. When Pat was invited to join Edwin and his elite team of coaches, he jumped at the opportunity. “The Happiness Project is aligned perfectly with all that the Manifest-8 Life System stands for and is another tool in the toolbox of those who truly want nothing less than a remarkable life”
The app will be available for download through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store as of October 1 and later on Blackberry and Windows phones. The app is being built by Business Growth Experts, LLC with over 50 apps currently available in app stores including the Davis Music Festival and the Town of Parker host of the LPGA Solheim Cup tournament.
About I Am Happy Project: The I Am Happy Project is a non-profit organization with the mission of spreading happiness globally, one person at a time. In early 2009, Edwin Edebiri set out to shift people’s minds to happiness from the gloom and doom that dominates the news. The nonprofit is having an impact on our communities around the world with projects, such as, wrapping gifts for children in Davis, California, visiting seniors in Chicago, Illinois, and visiting orphanage homes in New Delhi, India and Benin City, Nigeria. I Am Happy Project groups are in 63 cities and 18 nations, representing every continent.
Edwin has appeared on many television and radio programs, many of which are available on the website www.iamhappyproject.org. Edwin is available for interviews and can be contacted at the email and telephone number listed above.
Locally, Pat Filice is available for interviews and can be contacted at coach@manifest-8.com and at 905-383-0828.
"In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility", Eleanor Roosevelt
"Success leaves clues", Anthony Robbins
In the coming weeks and months, I will begin to outline all of these timeless principles and techniques here on the Manifest-8 web blog. Some blog posts may be short and sweet while others more involved. Some may even span several postings relating to the same principle or technique. I welcome your comments and feedback and hope to see a lot of activity as people begin to both think about these principles and techniques and start to use them in their lives. I would also love to hear any stories you may have about how you have applied these principles and techniques.
Remember, make each day count!
Pat Filice
I was recently at a function where many well-to-do folks were present. I couldn't help but notice, after several conversations, that the focus of many people's lives was the accumulation of things and financial wealth. I wanted to share a wonderful biblical quote that I was reminded of that puts things into some perspective.
"A Life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump;
a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree." Proverbs 11:28
Whether one believes in traditional notions of a God or gods or more contemporary notions of a Universal Mind, collective consciousness or "force" governing all living things, the key that must be emphasized is a focus on spirituality.
We are spiritual creatures that are temporarily in a physical state. At the end of the day, never forget, you can't take it with you.
Have a great day and remember,
Make every day count . . .
Pat
"Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." BUDDHA
The great Buddha, in the above quotation made to his pupils, was challenging them to use their own intellect and common sense to draw their own conclusions. Great advice, one would have to agree.
Yet today, too many people rely on others to tell them how it is and what to do. People rely upon investment advisors for their financial decisions, doctors to tell them what to do to stay healthy, accountants to tell them how to save money on their taxes, nutritionists to tell them what to eat, relationship counsellors to build their relationships - the list goes on and on. It seems that we can't make even the most trivial of decisions nowadays without consulting with some specialist.
Now, I am not suggesting that these professionals don't have a role to play in their respective fields. On the contrary. But what I am suggesting is that every individual needs to educate themselves on the basics on whatever it is they seek advice on. These decisions are too important to leave in the hands of others. Your health is too important to blindly leave in the hands of your doctor. Your life savings is too important to leave in the hands of your financial advisor. Your marriage is too important to leave to the discretion of your relationship counselor.
These professionals are but tools and resources that are available to you to help you make the best decision you can. But ultimately, you must take responsibility for yourself, responsibility for your health, responsibility for your finances, etc. You are the only one who is truly looking out for you. So, follow the infinite wisdom of Buddha. Educate yourself on whatever it is you need help with first. Then you will have the common sense to determine whether the advice you receive from these gurus resonates with you and should or should not be followed.
Pat Filice
Manifest-8 Life Systems & Coaching
Hi Everyone,
I am excited to reveal that the Manifest-8 Life System Overview Report will be available for immediate download on January 1, 2013.
This is an exciting Free Report on the basics of the Manifest-8 Life System.
Register at the right for our free newsletter and subscription service and you will receive immediate access to this powerful report.
And please, let us know what you think of both the Report and the Manifest-8 Life System.
Until next time, remember . . .
Make Every Day Count!
Pat Filice