When my dear friend Anna went back to New Zeeland in September last year, she gave me a beautiful flip calendar. It is called the Happiness NOW! Perpetual Flip Calendar and is based on Robert Holden’s best-selling book Happiness NOW. The flip calendar is a collection of the major principles, insights and exercises from the heart of his work over the last 20 or so years. Today I would like to share a selection with you.
HAPPINESS is your original nature. It is YOU minus your neurosis.
To be happy, LOVE must mean more to you than anything.
Unless your God is a God of Unconditional Love, you will always be afraid of being too happy.
It is because the world is so full of suffering, that your happiness is a gift.
It is because the world is so full of poverty, that your wealth is a gift.
It is because the world is so unfriendly, that your smile is a gift.
Happiness is attractive. Once you decide to be happy, you attract great things into your life.
My Bible of Happiness is a relatively short tome. In fact, it is just four words long. It reads: Love and Be Happy.
No Amount of Self-Improvement can make up for a lack of self-acceptance.
The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of yourself – the presence of your own being.
Be big in your appreciation of so-called little things.
Slow down a while, cease to hurry for a moment, and let the inner happiness bubble up.
Keep smiling – unless you feel like crying. The key to happiness is not to be constantly positive; it is to be constantly honest.
Nothing can make you happy if you won’t accept that happiness exists within you.
Your natural unconditioned Self is happy already, but your personality may be too busy giving you a hard time for you to notice.
I love Robert Holden’s work: the wisdom, simplicity and authenticity. Sometimes I recognise where I have been, as in the last point ‘your personality may be too busy giving you a hard time’ and sometimes it reminds me of the things I am continuing to learn, such as ‘be big in your appreciation of the so-called little things.’
Thank you Anna, for this wonderful gift!
Photo Credit: Sanja Gjenero
