I got the above plaque from a Facebook friend’s page and it struck me as being filled with wisdom.  I don’t know who wrote it but it is certainly worth making note of. If any of us just lived by these rules we would find a level of happiness we might not otherwise realize.

• Free your heart from hatred — The old saying that hatred consumes you I’m sure is true but I don’t think that I have ever really hated anyone. But it seems that during the current election cycle hate, or at least extreme anger, is abundant. So many of my conservative friends seem to hate anyone they deem as a “liberal” but especially our current president!  It used to be that even if you didn’t agree with the policies of the president you at least had respect for the office he held.  The current leadership of the Republican party have thoroughly trashed that noble concept. As President Clinton said in his convention speech he has never seen this level of hatred for anyone holding office. It really scares me to look into the eyes of some of these folks. I’m really not sure what they hate. It could be that president Obama has increased the nation debt but if you look at the data it a went up more as least as a percentage of GDP while both Reagan and Bush II held office and they didn’t seem to be hateful then. It could be Obamacare but why would people be so hateful over given everyone a change to get affordable healthcare or to just join the rest of the world in getting our healthcare spending under control?  Hatred seems to be draining almost all happiness from many of my conservative friends.

• Free your mind of worries — We have become a nation, and maybe a world, of worriers. Some seem to worry that they are not worrying enough. Most of the things we seem to worry about are beyond our control so it does nothing but sap our happiness.

• Live Simply  — This is one that my wife and I have been doing for a number of years now. It is not that we are financially challenged in our senior years, at least not as much as many, but we simply choose to live simply and are happier because of it.

• Give More — Of course to me this means giving both my time and money to help those that are less fortunate than I have been. To some it means supporting their church in paying the bills and to others it means other things. The more you are focused on someone else besides yourself the happier you will be.

• Expect less — This is a tricky one for we consumer oriented capitalists. We are conditioned to expect more and more.

In looking at this list I can discover why my life seems to have so much happiness right now. If only others could get on board with this list we might be able to accomplish things that seem impossible in our world today. Let’s all try to be a little happier tomorrow that we are today. Chill out and don’t fret over small things and for the most part they are all small things.