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Realize that true happiness lies within you. - Lucian
Secret of living life larger than it seems lie not in possession of material but rather in possession of simple, conscious habits. It’s those habits that we develop over the lifetime that contribute largely to infuse energy, determination or lack of in our life directed by thoughts that we harbor.
As I grow, I realize that life can be cherished in even the most difficult times if I learn habits of living simple, living conscious everyday. I call it the habit of “Waste-busters”. What do you mean ? You may ask, Well, that is what I wanted to expound in the habits for happy life.
How can I live life that offers most to live in abundance ?. I would say, what if you focus more on what you have instead on what you do not have ?. What if you focus more energy, more thoughts of what is needed instead of what is wanted by your emotions ?.
Let me explore into some habits that are essential “waste busters” for the simple yet happy life. You may find application of these habits in other areas of life that need makeover.
- Conserve time : I started my experiments with most precious possession of mine few months ago, that is my time, and realize that why I am not finding time for actions that I consider crucial for my goals. I started creating log of time spent with action and simply tagged that as “goal mover” or “goal killer” and found that activities of spending in too long of conversation, web surfing took greater chunk of my time. It may be something else for you but I am confident that if you are not making progress in achieving you goals, it starts with simple thinking of tracking where you spend your time and making conscious decision to alter habits to focus your time on “goal movers” and less on “goal killer”.
- Conserve Money: This is classic yet most influential habit for simple, conscious life. I began to develop thoughts on money conservation when I realized that I have made more money over the time yet I have saved less in those years than ever before. There is no secret to this. When I started tracking my spending habits, I found spending that could have easily been avoided to save more. Do you have those extra suits hanging in your closet ? Do you have those pair of shoes that you bought several years ago yet never had them on ever ?. If this rings the bell then you and I both need to focus our energy to develop habit of making most use of what we have rather than being slave to the emotional impulse of what we do not have. I am amazed to save substantial amount of money just by developing habit of enjoying what I already have.
- Healthy relationship: Family is the pillar of your personal growth. I often found that when I find myself in despair and tensed with my alter ego, lacking energy and focus, it is often rooted in my thinking. This is tough yet profound revelation. How can I be at the center of the storm when I am feeling hapless to improve my relationship ?. Answer lies in developing habit of self less thoughts, to do what brings inner peace and happiness not for me but for my alter ego. When I learned the habit of healthy thinking, it changed my perspective on happy, healthy relationship. If you are finding lack of healthy relationship, start developing habit of selflessness. It will cleanse waste of toxin thoughts and fill your mind with positive, caring thoughts.
- Healthy eating: What I eat everyday makes me who I am. I live very busy life. I have aspirations and dreams of living happy life yet when I started this experiment of tracking my eating habit, I was shocked. I am a vegetarian and considered myself eating healthy. I was wrong. I eat chips, I drink diet coke and I love Pizza. I soon realized that I needed to cleanse my body of these toxins that cloud my thinking of living simple, conscious life. I needed food with less fat and more fiber. It was astounding to see amount of calories I consumed by eating what I liked rather than eating what I needed. Habit of conscious eating allowed me to track my in take calories and fat and allowed me to make simple yet healthy thinking of eliminating toxins from my body.
- Eliminate debt: Debt is devil. It can ruin you. It’s a train wreck that kills happiness among best of us. How do I develop habit to eliminate this devil ? . I started using simple reasoning when I viewed my debt and made conscious choices based on this reasoning. It is simple and known to all of us for generations. When I have impulse to undertake additional debt now, I ask to myself “Is this asset going up in the value over the time or going down ?” If it is needed even if I consider it to go down in value over the time, I learned to buy used which has already depreciated. I can not change force of gravity, I can only learn to live with the flow.
The only way a rich man can be healthy is by exercise and abstinence - living like a poor man.
- Sir William Temple
These simple yet effective habits have changed my life. It has changed my focus on living simple, conscious life. Be frugal, be simple for the happy life !
Other Blogs: Leo Babauta has great article - Peaceful Simplicity: How to Live a Life of Contentment
To Your Success,
