Project Happiness Articles — balance

"Happiness is inside of you, and you can achieve it anytime you like, no matter the outside circumstances." How many times have you heard this phrase? Although it sounds completely legitimate, it seems unachievable, at least to you. Most of us are like this. Here are the steps you can take starting today to bring more happiness in your life.

Limiting your daily technology use is a goal almost anyone can undertake. It can be a New Year’s resolution, and (funnily enough) there are plenty of apps to help you out. Here are just a few reasons you should think about minimizing how much technology you use.

Thanksgiving is suffering from Middle Child Syndrome. Halloween rolls in like the younger sibling: full of charisma and charm, in full party-mode!  Christmas, obviously the older sibling, looms responsibly tall, revered and sacred. Thanksgiving?  Well...it's stuffed in the middle. Turduckenned.

Thoughts precede action! But the key word in that phrase is action. If we have our “ideal” life only in our heads and written out as lists that we look at occasionally throughout the year-we most likely will never reach our “ideal” self. 

There's a common misconception that you can excel at work or at family life – not both. We tend to think of those people who seem to have it all together as some rare breed of a magical unicorn. We can’t possibly hold ourselves to those standards, can we? It’s an interesting question because it holds both the problem and solution: Standards.

Everyone wants balance.  It’s the hottest commodity.  If it were a stock on Wall Street, there would be a run on the market.  If it were a novel, it would be #1 on the best sellers list. We talk about it, look for it, strive to get it, we grab, opt in, opt out, make lists, and struggle to capture this elusive animal we call balance.  So, if balance is a universal desire, and we as human beings are so intelligent, why haven’t we discovered the formula for attainment?

If someone had told me a year ago that I would be meditating twice a day and that it would be changing my life, I would have laughed. It’s not that I didn’t believe that meditation could work, I just didn’t believe that it could work for me. Last January, I was proven wrong.

In the 21st century, we use the internet for almost anything; from planning and dealing with day-to-day activities to finding answers to questions we would otherwise not have known. But just how important is our relationship with the internet?

While clicking through our video options, my husband and I couldn’t find anything of interest in our usual genres. It was getting late and I’m now one of those oldish people who values sleep a bit too much. Right before clicking off the TV, I saw it – a title that grabbed my attention. Minimalism: a Documentary About the Important Things.

The modern corporate lifestyle glorifies the “Work hard, play hard” philosophy – you should have it all, and you should have it right away. A successful career, an abundant social life, the right body, the expensive holiday, a plethora of possessions…all topped with a flashy Instagram profile to show off just how fun-loving you are.