The Importance Of Attempting To Be Happy.

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I think that the good majority of us can agree that we all would like to experience as much happiness as we possibly can while we're alive. Of course we do have exceptions to that belief with the people that are miserable, and seem to enjoy having it that way. For the people that have unhappiness in their nature, that's their prerogative I suppose. My only quarrel with people like this is that they are often the ones that attempt to steal the joy of others because their unhappy. That's a topic for another day, but I definitely believe that most of us want peace and happiness in our lives for the most part. Happiness is one of those things that is truly a mindset. It is essentially a state of being that varies from person to person. However, I am a firm believer that it is something that rests solely on our shoulders. It is our responsibility to define what happiness means to us personally, and then take the necessary steps to reach that state of bliss. Something that I've noticed in regards to happiness and how the world we live in deems it is the idea that being unhappy comes from having a lack of items. There are many people out there in this world that truly believe that the only way to be happy is to acquire a lot of material things. In essence, this is what I would call social engineering, and it's a trap that many of us fall. In my opinion, this type of agenda causes us to stay in a state of unhappiness, even when we may have much to be happy for. Because of this type of engineering, I believe that many of us give up on the idea of finding and experiencing happiness. This is why I feel that it is of importance for us to attempt to find happiness.

Hello once again good people! This is Brad H. coming at you all once again, and you are now tuned into another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! For those that may be first time viewers, this is a platform I use to express my thoughts on a topic that I come up with as a point of interest. I try and use that topic to provide some inspiration that can hopefully serve us all in our lives. How are you all doing this time around? Good I hope. This section of the topic for the week is the soapbox section where I bring up something that is unrelated to the main topic at hand. So this upcoming week will mark the Thanksgiving holiday for many across the world. This is something that I try and bring up every year on my topics, because I think it is something that gets overlooked a lot during the holidays. I want to remind everyone to be mindful of those that are grieving during this time of the year. Yes I do know that the holidays are special for many of us, but the holidays also makes people think about their loved ones that are no longer here. I've talked about it before on here, but I lost a dear family member of mines six years ago during the week of Thanksgiving. Because of that unfortunate event, I tend to look at Thanksgiving a bit differently than I once did. I'm sure many of you can relate to this. I'll close by encouraging you all to call and check up on someone you know that may have lost someone around this time period in the past. Make sure they are holding up okay, and for those you that are personally affected by this, remember that the spirits of our loved ones live on through us. That's all for my soapbox, so lets go ahead and talk about the importance of attempting to be happy.

Now I talked earlier about how I feel that we as people have been socially engineered by the world we live in when it comes to happiness. My reasoning for bringing this up is because I believe that we can all agree that there are so many of us that just aren't happy in life. I know that sounds depressing and self deprecating, but it is a reality for so many of us. Now there are likely some instances where it is genuinely both reasonable and understandable for a person to not be happy. I will also admit that there are different levels when it comes to being happy, so happiness cannot be viewed as something in a vacuum. However, how many of us complain about not being happy despite having some semblance of things that we should be happy for? Most of us have so much to be happy for; heck even just being among the living is something worth being happy for. Unfortunately due to the societal norms that have placed upon us, many of us are unable to see past the fact that many of us do have reasons to have some level of happiness. We spend too much of our mental space focusing our time and energy towards all the reasons we shouldn't be happy, rather than focusing more on the things that we already have. Again, this isn't entirely our fault because I think it has become habitual for us to view life in this way. Most of have been conditioned to view the glass as being half empty over half full, and if we practice bad habits on a everyday basis, those habits become ingrained in our psyche to the point where it's hard to break free of these habits.

Now I brought up earlier the habits and conditioning by society to set up the next point that I want to make for this topic. Hopefully what I'm about to say doesn't come across as too harsh, but the reality for most of us that experience chronic unhappiness in our live is that we are choosing not to be happy. Yes, I am one of those people that indeed do feel that happiness is a choice, and I'm going to expand on that point by saying this. There are many of us aren't even trying to find happiness in our lives. Now some people may read that and say; "Brad H., what do you mean I'm not trying to be happy?" My response to that question would be this; how can you be attempting to find happiness if you're still under the programming that conditions when it comes to happiness? If you've yet to truly break free of the standard of happiness that society has set upon us, how can you truly attempt to have happiness. See, most of us feel like the only way for us to be happy is if we have all these various material items, etc. Too many of us believe that by chasing after these things is the only way for us to attempt to be happy. I personally believe from my perspective that attempting to find happiness means changing our mindset. The thing with happiness is that it always comes in waves. Even people that are generally happy in their lives will go through patches where they experience a lack of happiness. Again, it comes in waves, but changing our mindset is the only way that we can attempt to achieve happiness.

So ultimately, why do I feel is it of importance for us to attempt to be happy? Besides the obvious benefits that come along with being happy in this life, the idea of breaking our minds free of the societal shackles is the main reason from my own perspective. In my opinion, these shackles that I'm referencing in this topic are the reason for many of us to not even trying have happiness. This is why I believe so many of us would rather complain about how messed up our lives are rather than trying to see a better outlook on our lives. As I brought up earlier on this installment, many of us have a lot of things in this life to be happy for. Unfortunately, we often fail to recognize these things because of what we've been deceived into believing what happiness is by the world we live. The bottom line is that if you're someone that experiences long term periods of being unhappy with life, your life and your mind likely will not change until you attempt to do something about it. I believe the best way for us to do this is to start looking at the little things in our lives that most of us take for granted. If you have people in your life that truly love and care for you, that is definitely something to be happy for. If you woke up today and you're breathing, that is something to be extremely happy for. There are many other reasons as to why we should express happiness, but it ultimately comes down to us as individuals. What I do know for sure is that we'll never be happy if we don't try to be, so lets try and change our thoughts to manifest happiness into our lives. There is always hope, but we have to be willing to try.

That about sums up this topic. I've pretty much said all that I think needs to have been said, so I'm going to go ahead and sign off. Thank you all once again to those of you that have read this far. I really appreciate every single person that does. I hope that this topic served as some inspiration for some of you out there. If you have any comments or feedback to give, please feel free to do so. You can also connect with me on Twitter @BradrickH if you like. For those that celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your family and the week ahead. This has been another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective' brought to you by Brad H. Take care everyone, and I'll see you all in the month of December.

©2019 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

The Importance Of Keeping Your Mind Simple.

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I know that I probably sound like a broken record when I bring up the topic of being cautious of the things we take in. This is something that I've talked about very many times on here, and I highly doubt that there will ever come a time where I no longer have a need not to. For those of you that may not know what I mean by being cautious of what we take in, I'm referring to all the information that comes at us on a daily basis. Things such as the news, social media, etc, are examples of what I mean by this. We live in an era where information is always readily available to the point where I feel as if our brains have a hard time taking it all in due to the constant release of it. One of the terms that people in the fitness industry use is "overtraining". Overtraining is described as "a point where a person may have a decrease in performance and plateauing as a result of failure to consistently perform at a certain level or training load; a load which exceeds their recovery capacity." I bring up the term overtraining because I feel that it pretty describes what many of us do to our minds when it comes to taking in information. Now I'm not going to get on here and say that we should never take in any kind of information. I mean if you're reading this, you are more than likely not someone that doesn't use the internet or social media in general. Living in a society where the internet and social media is the norm makes it extremely difficult to avoid. However, just with the overtraining term that I brought up, many of us willingly consume too much information that is quite frankly unnecessary to our lives. I believe there is where the problem lies, and brings me to this week's topic on why I believe it is of importance to keep your mind simple.

What's going on everybody in the land of the internet? This is Brad H. back once again, and you are not tuned into another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! This is the blog where I give my perspective on a topic that I think could be helpful for us all. Glad to have you all joining me once again for a week of introspection. As usual before we get down to this week's topic breakdown, I'm going to get on my soapbox and talk briefly about something that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Boy, talk about a downward spiral huh? I know that sounds a bit weird being that you all have no idea what I'm talking about. I am talking about the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. After being such a juggernaut for the past several years, they look like a team that won't even be able to sniff the playoffs. Now I know losing Kevin Durant and not having Klay Thompson for this season were big blows to their squad. Now Stephen Curry is down, and Draymond Green is also dealing with injuries. The thing that shocked me just a bit was how bad they were looking even before Curry and Green went down. I knew they weren't going to be what they have been, but I figured they would at least be able to get into the playoffs with Curry still there. I know they have a lot of young players, and their team has pretty much done a total overhaul. But with that being said, it's kinda hard to feel bad for them being that they had such a good run of being at the top. It's still early in the season, so we'll have to see how things unfold. I just know that I'm happy that basketball is back. Now that I've gotten on my soapbox, lets go ahead and get into this week's topic of keeping your mind simple.

Before we get into the heart of the topic on the importance of keeping your mind simple, I thought it would be beneficial to establish that there is a clear cut difference when it comes to the mind and the idea of keeping it simple. I know many of you are aware of this already, however, I figured I would point this out before going further with my main points for this topic. Now for most people that would maybe hear a statement that could describe someone as being a simple minded individual, there will likely be a negative association that goes along with this statement. I will admit that I happen to be one that would agree with anyone that views a simple minded person as something negative. Now in saying that, I'm not attempting to belittle or bash people that could be viewed as being simple minded. The truth is that we all are simple minded at various periods of our lives, and most people that are seen as simple minded often times just don't know any better. Negativity is definitely associated with the idea of being simple minded, but of course that isn't what we're talking about with this week's topic. From my perspective, there is a big difference between being simple minded, and keeping your mind simple. I wanted to address this because I want to make sure that no one confuses this topic as one that encourage us to dumb ourselves down. Now that we've established the difference between being simple minded and keeping your mind simple, what exactly does keeping your mind simple entail exactly?

When I think of a person that aims to keep their mind simple, I pretty much liken it to someone that is a minimalist. People that are viewed as minimalists often keep their lives simple from a standpoint of not having a ton of clutter in their lives. These are people that basically only keep the necessities in their lives because they realize that having too much of anything in your life can weigh you down. I believe that this same logic applies when it comes to our minds from my own personal perspective. We as people have a tendency to bog down and fill our lives, and our minds up with meaningless things that add up to being toxic clutter for our minds. I brought up earlier in this post how we already have so much information that we're taking in daily. Some of what we take in can't be helped, and depending on what it is we're taking in, it can be valuable for us. On the flip side of the coin, there are also things that we needlessly consume in our minds. When I think of this, bad habits such as gossiping and being overly concerned with the affairs of others are examples of this. From my perspective, when you engage in these types of habits, you are essentially corrupting your mind. Doing things like gossiping about others are poison to our spirits in my opinion, and we know that our mind and spirit go hand in hand with one another. Doing things like this excessively not only adds unnecessary clutter to your mind, but it also keeps your mind running consistently. This ultimately brings me to the point of why I feel it is of importance to keep our minds simple.

So we've talked about having too much clutter in your life and how it potentially leads to toxic habits. Well from my perspective, when we unnecessarily bring things that could be deemed as clutter into our minds, we tend to develop the habit of overthinking. It brings us to a point where we potentially make things in our lives more complicated than they need to be. This also includes our relationships with other people as well. A common theme that I've brought up in this subject is the word "over". Just like when I brought up the overtraining example earlier in the topic, overthinking is just as damaging from my perspective. This is why I believe it is importance for us as people to keep our minds simple. Getting to a point where our minds operate in a healthy way is the ideal here. I believe it is difficult to do this when our minds are filled up with so much clutter. It makes it hard for us to think and process things, and that makes our lives even more complicated. Am I saying that we shouldn't be on a path towards knowledge and information? Absolutely not. What I'm saying is that we have to learn to let go of habits that can be corrupting to our minds. I do realize that breaking bad habits isn't easy, and this is something that I've brought up on here before. But I am also a believer that the same way you develop a habit, you can also train yourself to unbreak it. At the end of it all, I just believe in adopting a minimalist approach in all areas of our lives. It's time for us to examine ourselves, and start ridding our minds and our lives of clutter. Make the decision to keep your mind simple today.

That pretty much sums up what I wanted to discuss when it comes to the importance of keeping your mind simple. I hope that you all enjoyed it, and most importantly I hope that it was of some benefit to some of you. If any of you have anything that you'd like to contribute to this topic, please feel free to do so in the comment section. You can also follow me on Twitter @BradrickH if you'd like. November is here folks, so the year is quickly coming to an end. However, just because this year is about to go out doesn't mean that we can't make the next couple of months great! This has been another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective' brought to you by Brad H. I hope you all have a great weekend, and an even greater week ahead. Take care everyone, and I'll see you all on the next topic. Peace!

©2019 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.