Proverbs on Happiness

Music: Concerto for Organ and Orchestra Op7 no1 mvt2.
George Frideric Handel.
Performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra at the Free Music Archive
under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

1. Happiness is another term for inner peace.

2. One achieves inner peace through harmony between what one does and what one believes.

3. Thus while outer events might make one happy or sad, happiness itself is entirely internal, and at all times completely within one's power.

4. This does not mean, however, that happiness is easy. It requires wisdom, discipline, and love.

5. Wisdom comes slowly, through the scrupulous pursuit of truth over time. Thus what one believes is never certain, but can always be sincere.

6. Discipline enables one to acquire habits in tune with one's beliefs. Behavior flows from character, which, like a mansion, is built of thousands of details, or acts, each judged not only for itself but for its contribution to the whole.

7. Love is the choice to open one's arms to life, enabling one to embrace imperfection. From it flow empathy, compassion, generosity, and acceptance. The opposite of love is fear.

8. To be happy, one must love oneself as well as others.

9. Because inner peace or harmony is never perfect, happiness is never achieved, and is always a question of more or less.

10. The inner and outer worlds are mirrors. How one shapes one's inner world through will shapes one's perception of the outer world. Thus an unhappy person is likely to perceive a world of lust, greed, and lies, whereas a happy one is likely to perceive a world of people struggling in the grip of love.