Don’t Worry, Be Happy

As well as a well-known song by Bobby McFerrin, this is also a good philosophy to aim for in life. Today is apparently Blue Monday, the most miserable day of the year, so let’s talk about happiness.

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.” Audrey Hepburn

Dan Gilbert asks Why are we happy?

Some happiness facts:

June 21 will be the happiest day.

The Happiest age is 33.

People are happiest first thing in the morning.

Yellow is the happiest colour.

Babies born in September go on to be the happiest.

Size-14 women are the happiest.

Happiest people live longer.

People with pets are happier.

Laughter boosts your immune system by 40 per cent.

The world laughter day is celebrated on the first Sunday of May.

Ireland is the tenth happiest country of the 156 surveyed in the world.

“We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends, and living our lives.” Maya Angelou

Creating opportunities to laugh

• Watch a funny movie or TV show.

• Go to a comedy club.

• Read the funny pages.

• Seek out funny people.

• Share a good joke or a funny story.

• Check out your bookstore’s humor section.

• Host game night with friends.

• Play with a pet.

• Go to a “laughter yoga” class.

• Goof around with children.

• Do something silly.

• Make time for fun activities (e.g. bowling, miniature golfing, karaoke).

Source: http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm

That Friday Feeling: Budget

We got through a tough week with the big, bad budget in the middle like Mr.Scrooge filling us with dread before Christmas but let’s not dwell on it. Let’s be poor and happy! Start planting those money trees and we’ll be fine. Wishing you all a weekend of riches.

Happy Flyday!

“A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn’t keep us from buying it.” [William Feather]

“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.” [George W. Bush]

“It’s insane to try to balance the budget.” [William Vickrey]

“The budget evolved from a management tool into an obstacle to management.” [Charles Edwards]

“You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.” [Joseph E. Levine]

“Due to budget cuts the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.” [Aaron Paul]

“Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.” [William Shakespeare]

That Friday Feeling: Mindfulness

Boy am I glad to see Friday….lately life has been going at a mile a minute so it’s nice to take a break and what better way to do that than a weekend away with the girls. Work is majorly busy and stressful at the minute and I’ve been a hive of activity this week and it’s not even December so I can’t blame the party season! It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind when you’re busy and forget to breathe or live in the moment so that’s what I plan on doing this weekend. Wishing you all many moments of joy this weekend and remember to be mindful. And to all my American friends, enjoy the thanksgiving weekend….happy thanksgiving.

Happy Flyday!

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” [Thich Nhat Hanh]

“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” [Mother Teresa]

“Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.”
[Sharon Salzberg]

“It’s good to have an end in mind but in the end what counts is how you travel.” [Orna Ross]

“Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.” [Sharon Salzberg]

“When you reach a calm and quiet meditative state, that is when you can hear the sound of silence.” [Stephen Richards]

“In today’s rush we all think too much – seek too much – want too much – and forget about the joy of just being.” [Eckhart Tolle]

That Friday Feeling: Oscar Wilde

So boy am I glad to see the back of this week and say hello to the weekend! It’s been a busy one and I am exhausted. This week the big news is Barack is back in for four more years and series 3 of Downton Abbey ended. No those two things aren’t related although there was a theory surrounding Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight and Barack! Looking forward to the theatre tonight and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Maggie Smith’s one liners in Downton always remind me of Oscar Wilde. Wishing you all a weekend filled with culture and wit whatever you may do.

Happy Flyday!

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

That Friday Feeling: Dr.Suess

Bet you are as glad to see the end of the week as I am! The weekend awaits. Winter has definitely arrived – it has gotten much colder since the 1st of November. Time to root out those winter woolies. So this week we had Halloween, personally not my favourite time of the year but people were really making an effort judging by the amount of houses with decorations. There was also a very pretty fireworks display and not that many bangers so perhaps I’ll change my mind! Hopefully this weekend I will see Skyfall, visit my friends new baby and go into town on a Saturday night! Wishing you all a rainbow and butterfly-filled weekend and remember to wrap up well.

Happy Flyday!

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

“In my world, everyone’s a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

That Friday Feeling: Dalai Lama

Love fridays and even better when you’re on a day off! I’m looking forward to my long weekend. This weekend spread a little kindness and find your inner peace…the Dalai Lama says it’s the key to happiness.

Happy Flyday!

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery… we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace.

That Friday Feeling: Pumpkin

Autumn has well and truly arrived in all its orange glory – the days are getting shorter, the weather is getting colder and Halloween is just around the corner. Am not a huge fan of Halloween but one thing I do love is pumpkins, don’t they look so friendly. Guess they are more an American thing with their pumpkin pies, we just basically buy them to butcher them and leave on our doorsteps with a candle to make them glow. Wishing you all a weekend as happy as a pumpkin [the non-butchered variety of course].

Happy Flyday!

“We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history” [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

“Men are like pumpkins. It seems like all the good ones are either taken or they’ve had everything scraped out of their heads with a spoon.” [Anon]

“I will keep moving forward, forever forward, towards and endless dream, and a thousand pumpkin lights.” [President George Bush]

“I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge.” [Willa Sibert Cather]

That Friday Feeling: Birds

Ah it’s Friday again and all is right with the world! This has been a mental week workwise so am looking forward to the weekend. The plan is to go visit the birdies, spend time with the sis, wine and catch up with the girls, catch a movie and maybe check out Oktoberfest. We can learn a lot from our feathered friends. Wishing you all a high flying weekend.

Happy Flyday!

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” [Lou Holtz]

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” [George Eliot]

“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” [e. e. cummings]

“A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.” [Anais Nin]

“The early bird gets the worm.The early worm… gets eaten.” [Norman Ralph Augustine]

“Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers.” [Yevgeny Yevtushenko]

“I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.” [James M. Barrie]

That Friday Feeling: Harvest

That time of the week again and we are already mid-way through Autumn – anyone else think this year is flying? I do love this time of year though and Halloween just around the corner. Time to put the heat on and snuggle up which is exactly what I intend to do for the weekend!

Happy Flyday!

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” [Robert Louis Stevenson]

“The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.” [Marcus Tullius Cicero]

“The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.” [James Allen]

“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.” [William Blake]

“The true harvest of my life is intangible – a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched” [Henry David Thoreau]

“Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you posses. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.” [Kent Nerburn]

That Friday Feeling: Maya Angelou

It’s been a busy week but surprisingly for some unknown reason I have been feeling happy and content! Perhaps it was the fact I took a long weekend so came to work feeling refreshed or perhaps it was a change in attitude or the fact I have been exercising more lately. Who knows but I hope to God it lasts a little bit longer. You still can’t beat that Friday Feeling. Wishing you all a happy and contented weekend.

Happy Flyday!

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.”

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”

“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”