The Happiness Jar!

The Happiness Jar!

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to think a bit about our happiness. It could be that 2013 was good enough, and it could also be that you could have done more to be happier. The 'happiness jar' is a great way to bring joy into our daily life. It's easy, all you have to do is take a glass jar and put little bits of your life in it.   How to get started? Think every day of something that makes you happy. It could be something that happened that day, but it can also be anything else. Be honest with yourselves, and find something nice about your day. To do this, you must disconnect your mind from any fixed perceptions of fake happiness, dependant on money or material things, and think of the simpler things in life, the little moments that make them worth living.     The happiness jar is only yours, and only you can decide what goes into it. You can put in a note on which you wrote your happy thought, or a stub of a ticket to a movie you loved. A painting, a poem or a nice shiny button even - as long as it represents a happy moment in your life.   A little tip: The more details you add to these bits, the easier it'll be to re-experience those moments of joy.    The jar is a symbol of your inner optimism, your belief that life has a bright side. So decorate it as you wish, use colored or other beautiful paper for your notes, and don't neglect it, after all, it's where you keep the happy moments! When do we open the happiness jar? When we make a happiness jar, we usually only open it after a year. But in real life, sometimes you just need to be reminded of all the good times. When you have an especially bad day, open the jar, reach in and find something to smile about and fill up those optimistic banks a little bit.   Be well, and remember, there's always something to be thankful for.