Reflections of a Survivor

It has been more than 3 months that I have added a new post to my blog or commented on any of the blogs that I regularly visit. There was no particular reason for this. The only reason was the workload, but I still could have managed a couple of posts. But somehow I couldn’t find the time to write one.

Even though I was reading the wonderful posts that all of you were writing, didn’t find the time to write a comment. So my sincere apologies to all my blogpals. I hope to be more regular now onwards and thanks to all those people who sent me mails and who were commenting me the Merry Christmas post. It was Geo’s comment “It’s almost the next Xmas time.” that made me realize the amount of time that elapsed since I published a post.

This is something that I came across a few days back—How to be Happy by R. L. Stevenson. Found it interesting and what he had written made a lot of sense. Thought of sharing it, as the first post of this year.

More than 100 years ago, author Robert Louis Stevenson offered the following tips for maintaining a positive attitude. They still apply today.

How to be Happy

1. Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things.
2. Make the best of your circumstances. No one has everything, and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears.
3. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t think that somehow you should be protected from misfortune that befalls other people.
4. You can’t please everybody. Don’t let criticism worry you.
5. Don’t let your neighbor set your standards. Be yourself.
6. Do the things you enjoy doing but stay out of debt.
7. Never borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than real ones.
8. Since hate poisons the soul, do not cherish jealousy, enmity, grudges. Avoid people who make you unhappy.
9. Have many interests. If you can’t travel, read about new places.
10. Don’t hold postmortems. Don’t spend your time brooding over sorrows or mistakes. Don’t be one who never gets over things.
11. Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself.
12. Keep busy at something. A busy person never has time to be unhappy.

Robert Louis Stevenson
Poet, Novelist & Essayist (1850 - 1894)

I wish you peace, success and happiness…