Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 384 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

The Realization of Happiness

Thank you for joining us for our 3 days per week, 12 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 384 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate you to live a rich and satisfying life this week. Today we are continuing our trek and will hike the trail called The Realization of Happiness.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. We arrived back from the Podcast Movement 2016 conference, and I have to say it was worth every minute and dollar invested in it. I realize that the information learned and the connections made will return many times the investment.

The PMx talk I gave on Wednesday was not quite as polished as what I had desired. But, the feedback I received from the audience was good, and I learned some lessons for the next time. Although Wisdom-Trek was not chosen for the Academy of Podcasters Award, just to be nominated was such a privilege. We are honored. Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast won the award in the Religion and Spirituality category, which was well deserved. It is an excellent podcast.

While at the event, we were able to reconnect with existing friends and establish many new friendships. The bonds and connections made this past week will last a lifetime.

After all the renovations on The Big House, a very enjoyable and successful family reunion, and then a great Podcast Movement conference, it will be nice to relax a little and then get back into our normal routine of client work and podcasting. I do have a few projects left that I was unable to complete before the reunion but will be able to leisurely complete those over the remainder of the summer. I plan to make a video tour of The Big House renovations once I get settled back in this week. I will let you know when that is completed.

With a new week facing us now and after some intense and exciting events, it is easy to fall into a lull period where it is hard to stay motivated. We do not want to fall prey to this, so today let’s hike the trail called…

The Realization of Happiness

Clinical psychologists believe that happiness is a product of realization. You must allow yourself to go through a process to realize happiness. While we may not experience happiness all of the time, we can take steps to ensure that we are happier in all aspects of life. It all boils down to the choices that we make in the following 14 areas:

• Accept the pains. You must realize and accept your situation for what it is. Sometimes people deny their hardships, thinking that if they don’t face them, they will be happier. But it’s the other way around. Allow yourself to go through the pains. Live life how it really is today, not what you hope it to be. Joy is an even greater sense of happiness because it defies circumstances. The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:4, “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!”
• Choose not to stay in pain. This is self-choice or could be called “self-empowerment.” You can either be bitter about the pains and feel very powerless, or you can make a choice to do something and feel powerful enough to handle them. It’s your choice to live with or without pain.
• Forgive yourself and other people. Before forgiveness comes in, think about how other people hurt. Then realize that you can see yourself for who you actually are and not how others want you to be. So finding happiness is never rooted outside, but it’s inside you—what you see, how you view things, what you want. Then it leads to your choice: to live your life with yourself. Learn to accept all of the apologies you never receive. It is then you will be able to free yourself from the control of others.
• Take responsibility for your life. You sometimes allow yourself to let other people, circumstances, or pains in the past to rule your lives. So you become very unhappy and very bitter because you live blaming others for who you are, where you are, or how you should be. It’s an exhausting process because you’ll forever be blaming other people. Don’t be bothered by who others think you are or the standards they set. Take responsibility for your life. It is not other people’s responsibility to love you. It is yours.

• Learn to let go and trust yourself. To be happy means learning to let go of expectations from yourself or from other people. You can’t always have your way. At work or at home, you can’t always be sure your strategies will work, or your plans will happen. But, before you let go, have a deeper trust in yourself.
• Learn to receive blessings. Think of the little things that make you happy or the people that give you assurance where you’re good. This is called receiving. You have reasons to be happy. You just don’t see them, or you take them for granted. You need to have the eyes and heart to see and feel the little and simple things in life and realize that all things that make you happy have been there all along. Choose and enjoy the little and simple things in life.
• Have somebody to turn to. Even if you’re in turmoil, there are people who will support you. Too often we stick with people who make us very unhappy. If you’re unhappy, seek people who will encourage and nurture you. You become like those that you invest most of your time with. Seek out others who will serve as a well-spring of inspiration, and don’t forget to be the same for them.
• Be hopeful. Having true and lasting hope is better than being optimistic since it is whole, real, and established in faith. Sometimes your optimism can be a denial of hardship. It’s easy to be fake optimistic about things, but inside you, you’re anxious about them. Hoping is deeper. It’s something you look forward to even when you recognize the difficulties and pains. The more hopeful you are, the more you recognize even when the situation is bad and difficult to handle, it will bear good results in the end. You don’t deny difficulties. You’re touching ground instead. As Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.”
• Keep the faith alive. There’ll be points in your life when you can’t handle problems alone. Think about someone who’s wiser and stronger who loves you dearly enough to take care of you. Having faith in God will give you hope, and allowing others to minister into your life will keep your faith alive.
• You can actually give intangible gifts even without your conscious effort. While it may not manifest itself immediately, people will tell you later that you’ve helped them, and gradually, you will feel you’re making a difference in their lives. That’s a deeper gift. When you help others, they affirm you by saying thank you and be blessed by your goodness. It is then that you realize that you’re a good person, and your goodness is not merely based on meeting deadlines, getting a raise, or some self-benefit. It’s more of proving your self-worth based on being loved for who you really are and not simply for the result you can deliver or the material contribution to a company or organization. This strengthens your positive attitude toward difficulties in life.
• Be grateful. You have to develop in yourself the sense of gratitude. You should be thankful for what you have. But you should recognize that there are things you can do to improve your life. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
• It’s all in the mind. We are unhappy because we think we are. Unhappy people are attached to their unhappiness. They refuse to change. When you think negatively, then you attract negative thoughts. If you think that a tragedy will fall on you, it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. Unconsciously, you make it happen. Of course, the converse is true. It all boils down to happiness being a choice.

• Money isn’t everything. People accumulate more and more money but the amount of happiness they can “buy” gets smaller and smaller. Although more money may bring a greater feeling of empowerment, studies show that personal relationships, spirituality, and feelings about yourself most directly influence well-being and happiness. Money should never be viewed as a source of happiness, but a source that will allow you to have options to make better choices in life and more opportunity to positively impact the lives of others.
• Discover the best friend in you. We can all change for the better. You can be happy even with yourself by discovering the best friend in you. Get real. Don’t be hard on yourself with those high, unattainable goals. It’s time you don’t look for happiness outside you. Today, let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as incomplete as you think you are. Yes, let someone love you despite all of this, and let that someone be YOU. To create a living legacy, you must learn to love others unconditionally. Here is the caveat, you can never unconditionally love others until you first unconditionally love yourself.

We have hiked the trail of The Realization of Happiness. To a large extent, we are in control and responsible for our own happiness. Also, we can experience a deep sense of abiding joy in our lives, regardless of our circumstances. Let us learn the lessons from today’s trail and apply them each day. Our next trek will be Wisdom Wednesday when we will explore for the nuggets of wisdom found in Proverbs 14. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along on Wednesday for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our trek for today. As you enjoy your dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person and invite them to come along with us each day. If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek so each trek will be downloaded to you automatically. I would like to ask you to also rate and review us on iTunes or Google Play so that others will find out about Wisdom-Trek and join us.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you on Wednesday!