Finishing Activity One! On to Activity Two!

Well, as of last night, I finished my first activity with my first motivational book!  YAY!!!

And I have to say it actually went really well. 

For those of you who might not have read my previous post of what I was doing for my first motivational book activity I'll explain it right now.  For the past seven days I wrote down three times, each day, of when I thought or did an action that would show appreciation of what I have, have compassion for someone else, and ask "Will this bring me happiness?".  And, starting last Sunday, I made sure to record each one, along with the general conclusion I had about the activity.  With this exercise I was trying to integrate the steps to happiness and training the mind to think about these actions.

So how did it go?

Pretty well!  I won't say that my thought process has completely changed and that my happiness level is extremely high.  But I will say that I now find myself stopping and appreciating things that happen around me.  I've started to ask, when I have a decision to make, "Will this make me happy?"  And, though this can be hard, trying to show compassion not only to others, which is easier, but also showing compassion to myself, MUCH harder.  And I really don't know why it's harder for me to be compassionate with myself rather than others, but now I know that I need to work on it.

But this is what the Dalai Lama means about training the mind.  It takes time.  And I hope that it will be easier as I continue to keep these thoughts in mind.

And with this in mind, I've created Activity Two with two parts.

The first part is that I'm taking the thoughts of compassion that I'm still having trouble with, especially with myself, and working on it even further.  Taking from an idea given during the reading of the book, whenever I'm being negative, towards myself or towards someone else, I will stop and list off three things in my head that will put the situation in a new light.  Like if I find myself thinking something bad about someone, I'll stop myself and put myself in their shoes and find three reasons why that someone is reacting the way they are, or doing what they are doing.  As the Dalai Lama states "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion; and if you want yourself to be happy, practice compassion."

The second part of this activity was something new that I got from the end of Part One of "The Art of Happiness".  I'm going to make a priority list.  A priority list?  Yep. A priority list.  As the Dalai Lama says, and I'm going to be quoting him alot, "When things feel stagnant and overwhelming, step back and reflect upon that your true purpose in life is happiness.  So then you can take the time to prioritize what makes you happy."  So that's what I'm going to do.  For my Activity Two, Part Two I'm going to make a list of my current priorities in life.  Then I'm going to make a list of the things that make me happy.  Then, after studying each list, figure out how I can incorporate the things that make me happy into the list of my priorities.

So there is my new Activity.  And I think a week is a good time to do this within.  And then, while still reading, I can create my next Activity.

I will say one thing, the "Art of Happiness" certainly makes you think!