Secrets of the Mind by Len Berg - HTML preview

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Spreading Happiness Around: Why You Must Care?

Spreading happiness around is to your mind what food is to your body. If it suffers of mental anorexia, your mind, at the image of the body which doesn’t receive the essential ingredients it requires to be healthy, will never reach the state of happiness. This reward will slip out of your grasp until you do what is right. Why is that so? is a question to put to the Creator of the Universe and, as a human being, the only answer you will get is: ‘It is an obligation made to you so that you can evolve and progress in the knowledge of the Universe as the Supreme Intelligence wants you to’.

What you do unto others, you do unto you, bad or good, it will be written in your account. Nature is very patient. It may take a lifetime before you receive your formal request for payment or your just rewards, but it will not go unsettled. Why not earn a bit now and pay off your debts or build a little nest?

It would be a nice notion to imagine that Mother Nature is tolerant, easily pardoning us our flaws, but the truth is: she is quite demanding. She forgives a number of sins but she won’t tolerate abuse and or negligence. You must devote your best efforts or suffer a penalty. She applies the ‘no pain no gain’ law with much seriousness. In fact, she wrote it.

As human beings, the ultimate goal of our life concentrates around one word:

‘Happiness’. If we were to become perfectly happy on Earth, we would have totally fulfilled our mission here. That moment will never come for we will be called back home before it ever takes place.

The definition for happiness can be made simple or complex. Let's keep it simple. Happiness – a feeling like no other – is made of love and positive emotions. It totally excludes hate and other negative sentiments and intentions. Happiness is peace of mind enriched with a velvety passion of the present instant. In fact, there can be no complete happiness till all negative feelings have been totally evacuated. Total happiness is perfect harmony. Happiness is the quintessence of life and its quest the only reason for man to exist.

A "normal" person cannot reach the state of happiness while she is surrounded with grievances, hate and the idea of revenge. So, in our quest for happiness, we have an obligation to spread around as much joy as possible. Not doing so would be like living in a space closely surrounded with extreme bad odors. The smell would soon permeate and contaminate our own.

For your own sake, be generous, spread happiness around. Some laws of the Universe appear to be very odd: they appeal to your selfishness to convince you to participate in a common goal. This natural law incorporates an obligation to share under penalty of losing one's own happiness.

There is more: each time you spread hope and happiness around a cut is paid to your account. It has taken me a lifetime to come to the conclusion that giving hope and spreading happiness is the most efficient and fastest way of attracting them to one's self.

Most people are born with a good heart. They are genuinely generous. To them all, happiness is just around the corner and ready to be picked up. Others will have to travel a small bumpy road. Hopefully there is a sure and rather short way for those walking in the right direction. Whoever you are, happiness is with you and in you. You pick it up or you go by. The decision is yours.

Another amazing and interesting quality of happiness lies in the fact that it tends to multiply endlessly. That smile you offer others, or that little word of encouragement to a friend has the potential to reproduce itself many times over. Be generous, spread happiness and see how it propagates in your neighborhood. Words have a form of magic power; they influence the mood and the attitude of those who hear them. Positive words generate positive responds. Unfortunately negative ones provoke the opposite effect. Being nice to others is the same as being good to your own organism. The domino effect will culminate with the boomerang effect. Your gift will finally come back to you enriched by all those you touched in the first place.

Nature has its own, sometimes baffling, ways of rewarding you. One throws a penny of happiness to someone; the piece touches its goal and, surreptitiously, continues its flight further, coming around your back like a boomerang and, enriched from its new experience, lands in your bag of happiness; the little copper piece having then transformed into gold.

The following example comes from my very own daily life. I see it like an artist's creation made out of articles picked out of a street trash can. To the insensitive eye it has no meaning at all. To the sensitive one it is a form of art, beauty, and imagination. Three or four times a year, I go to South Florida for a three to four week sojourn. I always walk on the beach early in the morning. On the first few days, very few people look at me and say “Good morning”. But I do my best to keep a smile on my face and greet most of them. After a few mornings, there are more and more people who greet me, and – this is the interesting factor – the habit expands itself. After a few weeks, in the early morning, most people on the beach – walkers, anglers, and other beach and ocean lovers – greet each other. Good habits and manners are communicative. They expand on their own power. This population is very mobile. Tourists and visitors come and go, and so it is obvious that when I leave, due to the lack of a leader, the habit dwindles. People tend to return to their former behavior. What matters to me is this: while I am there, I do my best to spark a tiny wave that will spread around. It works. I have done my best and have accomplished my mission.