Life is an experiment
- Written by Eric North aka “The Happiness Warrior”
As The Happiness Warrior, it’s always helped me to view life as a great game that all of us have a chance to play and win. Our personal circumstances and inherent advantages play a factor. But, with the right mindset and attitude all of us can be our own champions and find the right path. It can be difficult, and the challenges can seem insurmountable, but it’s our inner spirit provides our strength, intention, and quality of life. As humans, we are strong and magnificent when we realize that we have control of our thoughts and emotions. Greater happiness, courage, and life mastery comes when we learn that we can be ready for anything.
Like all games there are victories and losses, but every obstacle is there to teach us to learn to be better. We let fate guide us without realizing that we’re in control. We gain wisdom in our trials and seemingly unfair circumstances.
As humans we have the ability to look within and find our unrealized powers. We can always change our circumstances through self-discipline and gratitude. We can find happiness from our darkest moments. We can choose adventure and learning when times are tough. We can create our greatest triumphs from the ashes of our greatest fall.
The answers we are seeking are always before us when we know that the answer to our choices comes from within.
There are losses and wins throughout this great game and experiment but each of us has the ability to create our personal values and sacred nonnegotiable rules.
It’s how we understand our role in our own success that helps us move forward and win in anything we do in life. It’s how we create the world we want to live in and adapt and find peace with the things we cannot change. It’s how we create the life of our dreams and spread our happiness to others.
Moving forward is the only sure way ahead and our attitude and level of commitment are ours alone to choose. This can help us navigate and maneuver through even the worst and most unexpected events while gaining self-esteem and happiness.
Adversity is a catalyst for great growth and fulfillment. It helps us to navigate through the toughest of times and still find moments of connection and energizing light. We can all be happy warriors in the game of life. Why not make this life-affirming and easy choice?
It’s a great feeling when we know we are winning but most of the time we’re battling obstacles and self-created emotional pain. Moving forward can feel like a struggle without any purpose. Know that we have the power to change our thinking and search for a new path ahead. These are the times when it can seem so hopeless, and we’ve reached our lowest point. One truth is ever present--there is always a light in every dark moment no matter how hard it might be to see. When we focus on creating more light in the picture of our life we can watch your old fears recede and disappear.
There are no rules in this big game of life but how we understand and play it is the story of our destiny.
FIND YOUR PATH
Nothing is more complex than figuring out a clear path for our lives, but if we play the game of life with self-awareness and we can discover the magic of self-discipline—the creator of our happiness. We can more easily find the answers and clarity which we seek. We can learn to be happy in almost any circumstance when we believe in ourselves and our ability to set things right.
Life happens to us and how we adapt, overcome, and accept our obstacles and challenges is how we build confidence, greater happiness, and wisdom. It’s how we create happier self-affirmed identities with authentic values. Our purpose expands and our journey prospers.
In my younger years I was in a hurry to grow up. I wasn’t comfortable with the conformity and social structures of my conservative Southern upbringing. I couldn’t wait to grow up and find my authentic self. I was insecure and restless and became addicted to excitement and reckless adventures. I managed to survive every time, and experienced many wonders, but I was a danger to myself. I’ll never forget the highs and thrills and the confidence that they built, but there were many scenes that left me distressed. In seeking my wild adventures, I had neglected to find myself. I hadn’t made the connection with uniting my actions with my authentic being.
My twenties and thirties passed by at an exciting pace, but all too soon it came crashing to its logical conclusion. I had reached a point where it was no longer fun, and I knew I needed to change. I knew that I still hadn’t revealed my true self. At a very painful and lonely moment I had a moment of clarity and began to remove the negative self-created feelings, emotions, and people in my life. I began to understand what authentic happiness means.
So, I broke up with my earlier life and rediscovered who I really was. I felt peace and knew that I was on the right track. Finally, I was on the road to happiness and began to share my journey. I discovered the peace that came with after the chaos. I began to get to know myself and unleashed always suppressed my inner being. Happiness became the cause that I believed in. I began to understand why I always need to set things right.
ADVENTURE
There’s nothing more primal and human than when our blood is pumping, and adrenalin is surging. It’s the part of life that we both fear and crave. Adventure is unknown territory that can be both frightening and bring us so much joy. It’s about growth and change and how we face the fire before us. It’s how we come out the other side and gain more life mastery and understanding.
Nothing in life is guaranteed to be safe, but nothing gives us more satisfaction than meeting life’s challenges. Success and happiness in life come from our trials and adventures.
SELF DISCIPLINE
As The Happiness Warrior, I believe in the transformative power of self-discipline to change our lives. There’s no safe path and there will always be challenges. Each of us has the power to start in even the smallest actions. Be your best and be better than the day before. Ask yourself if you're better off doing nothing and answer the question truthfully. Remove guilt and shame from your consciousness and vocabulary and the inherent powers that come from within. We can all be warriors for our own lives when we believe in our cause. Self-discipline is the key to observing life’s wonders. Feel the power for yourself!
ATTITUDE
I believe that the attitude we project is the key to understanding our lives. Attitude is ours alone to create and ours to manage. It’s the spirit that comes from within that helps us rise above our troubles. It’s the mechanism and key to living a happy and fulfilled life.
Attitude is:
-Entirely ours and ours only.
-The means to better relationships
-Our compass throughout our life.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
If all of life is like a game or experiment then the more we challenge ourselves the better. The safe and fearful choice is always the worst and creates the most negative emotions. When we listen to our inner voice we always find our answers. Choices abound when we are free to be ourselves.
Focus on the present and create a balance between long term goals and accomplishments. Learn to reward and praise yourself for your victories and learn from all mistakes and failures. True personal growth comes when we can be honest with ourselves without need for external validation. We truly know ourselves when we know our worth.
Be curious, seek to learn, and yearn to be better. Find the formula that works for you and realize how it makes you feel.
Resilience comes when we learn to bend to life’s challenges. Hardship can often lead to better and unimagined results. Help others in their struggles with what you’ve learned. Nothing has more impact and can change more lives.
Share the light that comes from within and connect with the energy of the universe. Be proud of how you play the game in this great big experiment of life!
How to have a greater life
- Written by Eric North aka “The Happiness Warrior”
As The Happiness Warrior, I believe that all of us have the power to change the story of our lives and the path that we take. Life is never easy, and we tend to seek safety, but when we walk through our fears we can begin to conquer them. We can raise our feelings of happiness when we learn to trust ourselves.
I believe that all of us are born with an innate sense to achieve, create, and inspire. It naturally starts when we’re young when our minds are first awakening. For a short time, we can be carefree and happy. All too soon, we encounter judgment, and learn to adjust our behavior to please others and avoid shame and isolation.
Even at this early age we learn the costs that come without confirming and we begin to build walls that greatly harm our self-esteem. We lose our insight and learn to hide our authenticity.
It’s no fault of our own, but one that we can overcome. When we know without a doubt that all of our good comes from within we can begin finding contentment for who we are. We can trust our inner voice that’s there to guide us and make our lives happier and more fulfilling.
When we’re young the world can seem like a happy place where we are free to be our authentic and truest selves. Ego is still unformed and we’re able to express how we feel and who we are.
Inevitably, societal pressures begin to accumulate, and we learn to bend to the will of others. We conform to their expectations and gradually lose our sense of who we really are and one day realize our dreams have slipped away. We begin to feel that this is life we deserve and forget to fight for ourselves. It’s the story that we see too often and one that we can learn to change and do without.
We all have the power to change and adapt through our attitude and mindset. It’s ours alone to create and control. Through self-awareness we can create a new narrative for our lives that fills us with strength and gratitude. We have the choice to see life as a magical journey where we will prosper, or we can hide and never live up to our full potential. Only we can decide how happy we can be.
Through our attitude and mindset, we can create a new narrative for our lives that fill us with strength and conviction. We have the choice to see life as a magical journey where we will prosper, or we can hide and never live up to our full potential.
BEING BETTER IS SELF-DISCIPLINE
Every night I tell myself before I sleep that I did my best that day and vow to do better tomorrow. It’s the rhythm that I set for my life, and it keeps me focused on what’s important and how I can contribute to society and make it greater. It's a way of life and a self-discipline that has great power. It’s a choice that we all have to make in our lives that provides rewards beyond measure.
Life is meant to be experienced with joy and it’s our intention that gives it meaning. Life is greater when we learn to trust ourselves and overcome our self-created barriers. We can learn to trust our authentic being and leave societal inhibitions in the past. As humans we are most powerful when we live in our truth without apology or hesitation. It might be hard going at first but the rewards will exceed our expectations.
LEARN
As humans we are always learning and capable of change:
– To learn is to create greater opportunities and choices.
– Knowledge creates wisdom, and our actions construct our reality.
– Learning enhances our self-awareness and empathy.
– Self-motivation and discipline are the keys to success.
The more we learn the more we appreciate and feel gratitude for our lives. Educating ourselves is the path to a greater understanding of what it means to be human and the sacrifices we make to move forward with our lives. Learning takes many forms, but keep these in mind:
- Be grateful for everything..
- Stop complaining and just be…
- Choose how to respond and react. This is the only form of control that we have in our lives.
- Stop blaming and comparing ourselves to others. We can’t create anything with our lives that’s worthwhile until we stop passing responsibility on to others.
SHARE
Focus on sharing your story and creating the career you desire. Serving others is the key to our heart and desires. There will always be people out there who believe in and support you.
Awareness is the path to our redemption. When we unlock our fears through introspection we begin to live in freedom. Understand that most fear is a self-created mechanism to help us feel safe that irrationally holds us back. Fear is both the killer of dreams and our spirit. When we share our fears we are more easily able to conquer them.
Add structures and systems to gain life mastery, self-esteem, and clarity and earn the life you deserve. We get more when we try harder, and we gain more when we feel good about ourselves and our efforts. Learn to forgive yourself and learn from failures. Learn to listen and respect your inner voice. It’s always all knowing.
YEARN
For every problem we encounter there's a better solution than we have yet realized. Take a moment and think about the causes and look for previously unthought of solutions. Think of life as an equation that can be solved, and the formulas will take formation.
We can always create a better life when our dreams can be created with intention. A magical life awaits us when we believe in our powers and learn to listen to our intuition. We can be whatever we set our minds to as long as we believe in ourselves and know our truths. Focus on good thoughts and turn them into reality. Life is happiest when we believe in ourselves and our right to flourish. Happy people seek other happy people. Connect with those that raise and inspire. Be grateful for the bright lights that guide our way. This is how we create the magical life that we’ve only ever dreamed about.
NURTURE
In order to learn to love our bodies we must start with loving ourselves. How we talk to ourselves matters and our inner dialogue is the key. Stop using self-abusive dialogue and living with unnecessary negative thoughts. It’s not easy at first but every time you catch yourself try to bring it back. Words have spirit and the words we use for ourselves are the most powerful and hard to change. Realize that we all deserve better lives. Know that all good things start from within, take a good look inside, and raise your vibration.
SHOW UP
I’ve always believed that one of the most empowering things any human can do is to learn to show up for our lives and be ourselves. It sounds so easy, but too often our egos keep us from finding enlightenment and we end up in a cycle of validation and self-denial. We get stuck in our own heads and care too much about what others might be thinking. We stop living our lives for ourselves and are more easily influenced by others.
Learning to show up comes in stages. Start small, listen to your mind to see how you feel and learn to take up space. Remind yourself of what you have to offer and feel confident in your powers. Smile and look for happy people. Happy people are always there to guide us to a new life. Be patient, be strong, and never forget that you’re unique and valuable.
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