I am sure that you have a desire to be happy. After all, that is probably why you are visiting this website named “Happy Thinking”! Unfortunately, as you know, the world you and I live in is full of stress and problems, which at times can make it challenging to find happiness.
While you may not be able always to control the things happening around you, one thing you can control is how your mind “thinks”. The “way you think” can determine how problems affect your happiness. Certain ways of thinking will minimise the effect problems have on your level of happiness. The ultimate goal of Happy Thinking, which this website is all about, is to help you think in ways that allow you to be happy despite the problems you face.
To better understand how “the way one thinks” can affect one’s happiness, let us think of a scenario where two people are working for a very good company. This golden company pays good salaries and gives a lot of luxurious perks.
But now imagine that things go wrong with this company. They make some poor business decisions, and the company suddenly goes bankrupt. Our two workers have been told that they no longer have jobs and they need to leave immediately. Both these people are now in a very unfortunate situation where they will lose their generous salaries and perks.
However, when facing this stressful situation, let’s imagine that the two people in our scenario think differently to each other.
One of them might think, “Well that was a great job, but that is no more. No point thinking of what I have lost, instead, I need to start job hunting as soon as possible so I can pay my household bills.”
On the other hand, the other person might think, “How terrible! Bad things only happen to me. I will never get another job. There is no point trying as the world is useless.”
In this scenario, both people have to face the same problem, but each has a markedly different way of “thinking” when dealing with the problem.
The first person has ways of thinking that are positive as they do not make the person’s sadness worse. Rather, this person’s helpful ways of thinking keep his or her mind in a state where it could effectively think about potential solutions. This person’s positive outlook will help the person to move on and ultimately find a replacement job. This type of thinking helps the person be as happy as possible given the circumstances, and is what I would call, “helpful thinking”.
On the other hand, the second person’s way of thinking is unhelpful as it makes a bad situation worse. This person may well spiral into depression, which itself may make finding another job difficult. This type of thinking, which makes a person feel worse and less able to solve problems, is what I call, ”unhelpful thinking”.
Despite facing the same stress, one person’s way of thinking made him or her remain happy while the other person’s way of thinking made that person unhappy. Two different outcomes, just by thinking differently.
Over your life, you may have developed unhelpful ways of thinking that can unnecessarily cause you to have an unhappy mental state. Such “unhelpful thinking” can create problems when none exists or if there are real problems, may make them negatively affect you more than they should (like in the example we just described). You may have developed the habit of thinking in such unhelpful ways so gradually that you may not even realise that you are thinking in such ways.
This website will help you discover Happy Thinking, which is about finding happiness by recognising and changing unhelpful ways of thinking.