"Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you."
Hafiz of Persia How to Be Found Some people spent their entire lives looking for happiness without success. That's the path I felt like I was taking after I graduated from college. I loved the people I met working at the popular coffee shop. I loved doing improv comedy and performing in front of crowds. I even loved the grind of trying to produce shows on a tiny budget. Despite these wonderful things in my life, I wasn't happy and I felt like I would never find happiness. That's when I decided to let happiness find me. I love this quote from Hafiz of Persia, because most of us think that the "pursuit of happiness" is one-way. We are the ones looking for happiness and it is our responsibility to find this ill-defined state of being. What if, however, at the same time we're looking for happiness, happiness is actually looking for us as well? Have you ever gotten separated from a group of friends at a mall or a festival of some kind? It seems like no matter what happens, you keep missing each other until half an hour later you talk about all the places you hunted to find each other. If you had stayed where you were instead of moving consistently, it's likely that your friends would have found you sitting on that bench. Perhaps it's the same thing with happiness. We are drawn to the new exciting thing or the get-rich quick scheme or the person who we think will change our lives. These ideas and people tend to pull us away from who we are and what we are used to doing. Obviously, we need to change and grow in life, but if we don't check back with where we have been and who we are deep down, happiness may miss us. I realize that this is a bit of a metaphysical way of looking at things, but I think it's important to keep in mind the two-way nature of happiness. It's not running away from us and it's not hiding in some deep cave that we haven't discovered yet. If we think about happiness as something trying to find us, it will be much easier to track down than if we assume it's some mythical, unobtainable relic. Give yourself a better chance to find happiness by looking inside yourself to see where this joy might be looking for you. You may be surprised with what you discover.
-- Bryan Cohen is giving away 61 paperback and audio copies of The Post-College Guide to Happiness and a Kindle Fire between now and May 7th, 2012 on The Happiness Blog Tour. All entrants receive a free digital review copy of The Post-College Guide to Happiness. Bryan hopes to give away at least 1,000 copies during the blog tour. To enter, post a comment with your e-mail address or send an e-mail to postcollegehappiness (at) gmail.com. Bryan will draw the names at the end of the tour. Entries will be counted through Sunday, May 6th.
He has written nine books including 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More, 500 Writing Prompts for Kids: First Grade through Fifth Grade, Writer on the Side: How to Write Your Book Around Your 9 to 5 Job and his new book, 1,000 Character Writing Prompts: Villains, Heroes and Hams for Scripts, Stories and More. His website Build Creative Writing Ideas helps over 25,000 visitors a month to push past writer's block and stay motivated. Feel free to follow along with the tour at The Happiness Blog Tour Hub Page or on the book's Facebook Page.
My Thoughts:
Wow, I feel happier already after reading Bryan Cohen's The Post-College Guide to Happiness. No really, I do. A few years ago I picked up the book The Secret. I don't know what possessed me to pick it up I just did. I brought that little book home and started reading, and I was completely transformed. I really was. I had been an extreme worry wart and was pretty negative on top of the constant worrying. I haven't read that book in a while and Bryan's book came to me at the perfect time. I had begun slipping back into those old habits of worrying irrationally, and the negativity was starting to creep back in.
I really love Bryan's style of writing. He is informative and inspirational while maintaining a light entertaining tone that is easy to read. He not only talks about being happy but includes ways to practice becoming happy. In chapter 7: God and High Spirits Bryan mentions that some people might have problems with bringing religion into being happier. I have to say that was actually my favorite chapter. Obviously that is an area that I have been needing to think about at this time in my life.
I have already started recommending this book to my daughter, and I know I will be recommending it to many more people in the future.
Thank you Bryan for the pleasure of joining your blog tour, and for writing such a wonderful guide to happiness.
