I am sure that you want to be happy. That is probably why you are visiting this website about happiness! I too have the same desire. However, the world we live in is full of stress and problems, making it challenging to find happiness.
The world is full of challenges. The “way one thinks” can determine how these challenges affect your happiness. Certain ways of thinking, which I will call “helpful thinking”, allow one to remain relatively happy despite the challenges one faces. Conversely, there are certain ways of thinking, which I will call “unhelpful thinking” can let challenges negatively affect your happiness. The ultimate goal of Happy Thinking, which this website is all about, is to help one to change unhelpful ways of thinking to helpful ways of thinking.
A good starting point would be to understand what helpful and unhelpful thinking is. I will use a simple example to help you understand the concept.
Let us imagine that 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. 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.
On this website, I will explain describe common unhelpful thinking that people do. This will help you to recognise unhelpful thinking when they occur in your mind. I will also explain to you various “mental tools” that you can use to change unhelpful thoughts. These are very practical mental techniques that you can use daily to manage your thoughts. In addition, I will also share with you concepts and wisdom about happiness taken from various modern and ancient sources which could help you with your journey of finding happiness.
In essence, these are the ingredients of Happy Thinking. Mixing these ingredients will provide the happiness you are looking for.
