Becoming the Happy Writer

As a fairly reclusive individual, and one painfully aware of crowds, I'm constantly on a quest to find peace. Once I find tools for inner peace, I fight hard to  maintain them. Those tools give me confidence, and when making appearances, I grip those tools like a life preserver on a sinking ship.

In the last post I spoke about keeping up with the government environment that used to be so instilled in me. Today, I talk about zen living. I have a yoga friend who I greatly admire, who is so grounded and so aware of her surroundings that her calm flows out to all those around her. She has an endless array of friends, some that would drive me bat-crazy, but she manages to rein them all into her peace. And they all want to be like her.

One of my favorite websites with great lessons on good living is DailyGood.  It is one of the very few websites out there that can make me slow down and just enjoy the reading. I walk away with so much that makes my life feel better.

An archived piece entitled "15 Things You Should Give Up to be Happy" is my gift to you today. It's just marvelous, and I swear, I'm going to incorporate this mentality in my writing somehow . . . as a minimum in one of my conferences speeches.

1. Give up your need to always be right.

2. Give up your need for control.

3. Give up on blame.

4. Give up on self-defeating self-talk.

5. Give up your limiting beliefs.

6. Give up complaining.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism.

8. Give up your need to impress others.

9. Give up your resistance to change.

10. Give up labels.

11. Give up on your fears.

12. Give up excuses.

13. Give up the past.

14. Give up attachment.

15. Give up living your life to other people's expectations.

You can feel the burdens lift off your shoulders just reading the list, can't you? When we aren't so stubborn, we feel better. When we're more open, we feel better. Somehow I can't help but think that we'd write better, too.