Every year I spend some time to write down my resolution for the year.  Most of the time, I achieve 80% of what I write down.  This year, I will share one resolution with my readers: I decided to have deliberate happy days at least one day per week.

• The power to decide to be happy

One of my resolutions for 2016 is taking the decision to be happy one day a week.  I will be in a great mood the whole day, giving my mind a vacation from worries. My mind will take a break and postpone the worries until later, creating a state of great relaxation.  I will meditate more on that day and establish more connection with nature by waking up early and taking a walk with our dog.  I will also decrease the amount of talk and increase the amount of listening.  On that day, I will spend more time sending thank you emails for all the kind things I received during the week.

• The power to decide to handle anything

In the past and during the journey of reading great books, trying hard to learn from the world’s wisdom, I developed many rules to navigate life with the least amount of trouble and pain — of course with some limitations.   A great piece of advice which I read somewhere was to decide to handle anything that comes in my way regardless of the difficulty.  Just decide to handle this no matter what. This advice was like a revelation — wow, you only need to decide.  I was puzzled by the simplicity of this advice.  I needed more than a mental decision, I thought,  to handle things.

Moving forward with this advice, I was very happy; things became easier.  This simple advice helped me to cope with my mother’s passing away in 2013 and my dad’s  in 2014. Somehow my brain switches to this resilience mode, without any complication or training, when difficulties hit, especially when they hit hard.  To live well and fully, we need to ponder wisdom we find around us. Our life should be balanced to create some mind relaxation zones. This simple advice eliminated the anxiety and the feeling of being overwhelmed when hard times hit.  My fears were controlled, and I experienced a great  level of confidence.

• The power to decide to practice meditation

Maybe meditation is my last two years’ resolutions. The calming effect  produced by meditation is a joyful feeling during my working hours .  There is some kind of happiness and relaxation my mind reaches, taking a break from the demands of my work day. When I started meditating at work for 10 minutes, I used to feel guilty. I mean I could use this time to answer several emails or read the mounting documents.  Meditation made me feel fine with this pressure. In fact, as soon as I finished the meditation, I would feel a surge of energy, allowing me to march ahead to finish more things. Somehow meditation triggered hidden ideas and ways to improve my work environment, increasing my productivity with the least amount of stress.  If you don’t now meditate, do this as soon as possible.  The scientific research is piling up to prove meditation has a profound effect on our health and mental state.

All in all, the habit of deciding to be happy on certain days of the month will be a new resolution for me to develop this year.  It will start at night the day before to prepare for my activity for the next morning.  I will be the most optimistic person.  I will be hitting the internet to thank people for all the kind things they gave me during the last week. I will use the day to call my family members and friends who I haven’t heard from for a long time.  I know this might be too much for one day, but if I can’t finish, I will extend the day to the next. This will allow me to have at least two days out of seven when I am in complete harmony with myself.

This blog is usually written on Saturdays (this one is late though).  I would love to hear from you. Please email me at Thefutureofcreativitynow@gmail.com