{"id":10819,"date":"2015-04-14T21:01:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T01:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=10819"},"modified":"2015-04-14T21:01:28","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T01:01:28","slug":"why-cant-i-ever-be-happy-ask-me-miss-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/why-cant-i-ever-be-happy-ask-me-miss-c\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Can’t I Ever Be Happy? — Ask Me\u2026 Miss C!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ask<\/a>Dear Miss C,<\/i><\/p>\n

I just have one question. Why can\u2019t I ever be happy with my life?<\/p>\n

\u2014NVRHPYGRL<\/i><\/p>\n

Dear NVRHAPYGRL,<\/i><\/p>\n

I would like to preface this response with a broad qualifier, I do not know you, your situations, your loves, your stressors, or joys. So, I will respond with generality, and hope that a piece of this response touches you. There are several barriers to finding true happiness in our lives.<\/p>\n

Happiness Barrier No. 1:<\/b> Complexity<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/b>\u00a0Simplify<\/p>\n

We often let our lives get overly complex. We spend more, we constantly try to do more, which means we are always getting pulled in several different directions at once! That of course does not include our constant need to be connected (phones, social media\u2026 etc). It\u2019s a lot of pressure! So guide yourself by the advice of the Dalai Lama, if you simplify your life, you create more space in your day\u2026 making it possible to reflect on your life.<\/p>\n

Happiness Barrier No. 2:<\/b> Negativity\/Despair<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/b>\u00a0Let go\/Stay Hopeful<\/p>\n

\u201cYour prison is nothing in comparison with the inner prison of ordinary people: the prison of attachment, the prison of anger, the prison of depression, the prison of pride.\u201d wrote Lama Zopa Rinpoche to a California prisoner, a student of the Liberation Prison Project, which offers Buddhist teachings to people in prison.<\/p>\n

Some might view this statement as a bit of an exaggeration. But negative, compulsive thoughts\u00a0do\u00a0have a quality of stickiness to them. How you\u00a0see\u00a0things and the way you\u00a0experience\u00a0the world are strongly linked, making it critical to adopt a positive outlook<\/p>\n

Happiness Barrier No. 6:<\/b> Too much Isolation\/Independence<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/b>\u00a0Connect with others<\/p>\n

A recent 20-year study of more than 4,000 people showed that happiness is influenced not just by your immediate friends and family. The happiness of a friend of a friend of a friend\u2014someone you\u2019ve never even met\u2014can also influence your happiness. It turns out that happiness can spread through social networks, like a virus.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many people spend so much time by themselves, they don\u2019t benefit from this positive \u201ccontagion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The more self-absorbed you are, the more your world closes in, and the less realistic you become, all of which produces a vicious circle. You become blind to everyone else, and so the world shrinks. When the world shrinks how often do you look outside of yourself?<\/p>\n

Blessings,<\/p>\n

\u2014Miss C<\/i><\/p>\n

*Send your questions to AskMeMissC@gmail.com, by private message to my facebook page, or via letter to my attention to the West Bend News*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Miss C, I just have one question. Why can\u2019t I ever be happy with my life? \u2014NVRHPYGRL Dear NVRHAPYGRL,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[218,3185,3511,59],"class_list":["post-10819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","tag-antwerp","tag-ask-me-miss-c","tag-happiness","tag-paulding"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-2Ov","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 06:22:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}