Tag: Happiness

Mindset: Is It Time To Clean The Attic?

When we make room for others in our lives, we fill up spaces in our souls that might otherwise become cluttered with the baggage that accumulates in our spiritual attic over time. Life is in constant motion from our first breath to our last and within that time comes the sum of all our actions.

We have no control over the rate in which time passes, but we do have dominion over how that time is spent. We can spend it creating baggage that we must store in the limited spaces that are available. Or we can use that time to share with others.

Time with others is not the creation of a burdensome load that clutters the chambers in our soul, but the expansion of a life that creates room to house the valuable relationships of love and friendship we acquire.

Happiness and misery are both results of time plus choices. When we choose baggage, we crowd ourselves into a small existence that revolves only around ourselves. However, when we share ourselves with others, we grow as large as we need to be to hold all the valuables our time allows us to discover.

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Mindset: One Moment Ago

Mindset: One Moment Ago

We live in a yield sign world where everyone and everything slows down but nothing seems to ever come to a complete stop. Life rushes by because we experience the world around us moving at ever-increasing speeds and if we are to keep up then we must flow with the rhythm of this world’s chaotic momentum.

However, we need to understand that the world only spins as quickly as each of us allow. We need to realize that it should not push us but instead be pushed by us as individuals in control of our lives. When our actions are done hurriedly and in haste then the very essence of those acts get lost in our attempt to keep moving forward.

Happiness has always been found within the small things of life. The moments we cherish are the few we actually take the time to explore and feel; the ones we carry with us and that save us when our world is in chaos and drifting off course in this vast universe. Every moment that we stop for and then savor is our natural reminder that the beauty of life is not in the expeditious manner in which we live it but in the leisurely way we experience it.

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Mindset Origins: Grant Yourself A Pardon

Mindset Origins: Grant Yourself A Pardon

I have been writing Mindsets for 25 years. I thought I might take some time to explain exactly what they are and how they originated. For most, if not all of us, we have defining moments or experiences which mold us into who we become. For me, that was a clinical depression in early adulthood. I began writing to help me express and understand that depression. Initially, most of it was dark poetry, but the more I wrote the less about expression and the more about understanding and finding hope it became. Within a few years, the dark poetry became more, eventually morphing into what would become Mindsets. I had chosen to focus on what could be as opposed to what was. I chose to understand instead of escape into a vice or become completely lost in misery. I needed to believe that everything has meaning and that life is not a cosmic roll of the dice without rhyme and reason. Writing Mindsets has helped me to answer many of my questions and hopefully answer a few for others as well. In addition, it has allowed me to write about subjects for which I am passionate. I will be publishing a series of my early Mindsets that I hope you will enjoy. Most of what I usually publish are new ones that I have written recently and so you will see subtle differences in styles and context as my style has evolved over the years, Below is the second Mindset in this series.

Grant Yourself A Pardon

Life leaves scars, regrets, and sorrows that grow and integrate into our daily experiences. Because of this, they eventually become more than feelings, developing into an integral part of who we are. As they grow, they begin to mislead us causing us to believe their hold on us is stronger than our gift of choice.

If we simply resist the deception and remember that who we are and where we are going is our choice, then we can choose for every day to be a new beginning. What has brought us contempt and unhappiness in the past can feel erased by the mere choice to be free of them.

What we hold on to, holds on to us be it positive or negative. If we choose to keep the negative then it chooses to keep us in that darkness. Circumstances are not punishments or rewards. They are, however, prisons or freedoms we either build or grant ourselves.

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Mindset Origins

Mindset Origins

It Only Takes A Spark In The Darkness To See

So often it seems the root of humanity stems from what we want instead of what others need. The desire of tending to our own comforts can build walls separating us from those who need us the most. It is not always a conscious act of neglect but more of an unwilling blindness that keeps us from the most important issues and people in our lives.

It is a simple gesture to give, one that requires only the choices to see and then to act. This simplicity has an awesome effect on both the giver and the receiver because it brings positivity, which sparks an internal change that never ceases to evolve.

After truly experiencing the power of giving, we no longer see ourselves as individuals with personal desires but rather part of a large family whose needs lead us to the understanding that we are only as comfortable and secure as those to whom we give.

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What The Hell…

What The Hell…

C.L. Harmon

For me, writing a blog with Mindsets and other bits of knowledge and wisdom gained throughout my life is about several things. One of these is helping others find answers or peace. Others include discovery, pursuing understanding about the human condition and helping people to connect with other people among other objectives. My favorite part about writing anything though is that I can do it while hiding away from the world. It’s safe and it’s private. I have become introverted over the years and spend much of my time in thought and alone. Because of this, much of what I write has hidden meanings and twisted definitions with the purpose of making those who read them to think deeper than they are accustomed to as I do.

I like knowing that I can affect you or impact your life without probably ever meeting you. The only problem with this is that I cannot be affected by you, learn from you. This, what I am doing now, is how I cope without outside help. I write. I share. Having written that, I am just going to talk this time without a point or lesson. I had a very, very bad week. The particulars or causes won’t change anything and so there is no need to write them here. But how certain words and actions made me feel this week, those I will share.

These negatives felt as though I had been hit so hard that my breath couldn’t return to my lungs. Adrenaline, anger, shock and confusion overwhelmed me to the point where my perceived clarity was no longer focused. This is the first time in my life that this has ever happened. Dealing with numerous career disappointments, clinical depression, hardships of many sorts and feeling alone even in a crowd for most of my life has hardened me to the point that feeling is more of a practiced response than an actual expression of true emotion. That certainly changed this week. Damn sure sent me reeling!

So now I am in territory that I have not been in since I was 19. It’s strange and I am still reeling from this burst of real emotion. I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to with this. I am breathing again, but cautiously and very slowly. Is this the way that most people live? If so, it seems like an intense way of living. Of course, I assume most people probably express a little at a time and so maybe the intensity is not that overwhelming as in my case. Still, how does anyone stay sane? Hell, maybe their emotions are what keeps them sane and I am the insane one. As I said, things don’t make a lot of sense to me right now. So I guess it’s possible.

At any rate, there has been something that has come out of this that seems almost out of context in this whole scenario.

I now feel as though I have been looking at life through a dirty window pane for so long that what I have been seeing is not actually what has been going on outside, but illusions made from the images out of the dust on the window. Now that the glass has been shattered, nothing looks familiar. It’s frightening and hopefully enlightening at some point. It’s so bizarre. I have never been stopped dead in my tracks like I was this week. I don’t know how to feel. I have nothing to teach and nothing to give in this writing except personal honesty. But I am writing anyway. Who knows, maybe there is a message even in this rambling. Then again…maybe not. For those of you who read me faithfully and take my writings as messages as to how to cope with life and find peace, please accept my apologies this time. I am only human…as I rediscovered this week.

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Happiness Is A Journey

Happiness Is A Journey

C.L. Harmon

Happiness is not a choice but a journey. We tend to believe that choices dictate the outcomes of our lives. This is only true to a point. Certainly, there is the cause and effect. But this is only a teacher to help us along as we travel on this journey.

We must learn to love. Then we must learn how to lose that love. Everyone experiences this at least once in their lives. We must learn how to accept that loss and to accept that we must live without it. We must come to the understanding that moving forward opens up new opportunities for us. We cannot simply state that we are happy despite the loss, pain, and misery. We must travel through it and gain insight from the experience.

With each loss, failure, and setback, we are expected to soldier on by our Creator. But more than this, we are required to grow out of the ashes into someone who can open up again knowing the pain of a broken heart or a shattered dream. We must learn to count our blessings knowing even this does not bring instant happiness in the wake of a tragedy.

The key to happiness is gaining the wisdom to understand that learning how to be happy is a journey. We must learn to forgive those who wrong us because what we hold onto, holds onto us. If we do not learn to forgive, then we must suffer the pain of that trespass each day. This is not a wisdom that can be gained without experience. It is, however, knowledge, that can be shared to enlighten us when we finally choose to release the negative we are grasping.

Happiness is not a product we purchase. It is not a word or a gesture or even a belief that can erase that which causes us sadness and depression. It is a journey where we learn patience, acceptance, forgiveness, empathy, and kindness. Life’s experiences culminate in this wisdom which teaches us that without our choice to learn these lessons, we are choosing not to be happy.

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Mindset: Free Will Is A Choice

Mindset: Free Will Is A Choice

The concept of free will is simple in its definition, but baffling to many of us since the choices we make do not always lead us to the outcomes for which we hoped and believed. How is it that some make choices to pursue specific goals and make similar choices as others to attain those goals, but do not the achieve the goals while others do.

I believe this is because of the choices we make with the actual freewill we are given. One of the greatest gifts we can give our Creator, who gave us free will, is to trust him so much that we give it back to Him. This action tells Him that we believe so much that His choices for us will be greater than any we could have chosen for ourselves.

However, as a result of this, we are led on a journey that is often blind and appears to make no sense. Others who choose to keep their free will and guide themselves often do reach their goals, but will not attain the greater gifts and understanding in this life He had set aside for them.

It is our choice to trust in our Creator or to only trust in ourselves. This is true free will. However, we cannot serve ourselves and the Creator too. Perhaps the greatest gift He gave us was the opportunity to give our destinies back to him, instead of leaving us to battle the world without His guidance.

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Mindset: Whispers In The Wind

Mindset: Whispers In The Wind

So many actions we do, words we utter and situations in which we are part of are seemingly of no significance at the time which they occur. Often they are as a fleeting thought, gone almost as quickly as they came. But to someone, they have an impact. It may be one that we never even learn of, but someone was affected by that action, word or the situation that occurred.

It is as though a cosmic pulse is formed which travels far into the subconscious of creation itself and the consciousness of those within this creation. It knows not the bounds of time and space. It lives in memories, in bones, in soil and in decisions made by all of us from the onset of that action.

Would our choices matter more if we understand that each one is like an echo heard far beyond reaches we can’t even fathom? That they live in our hearts as hate or love, in our minds as prejudice and equality, in history as brutality or kindness in philosophy as dark or light and in eternity as peace or torment? One seemingly insignificant action can be one thread for someone to hold on to in desperation or one thread unraveled from a blanket of security.

Nothing in life is insignificant. Everything is whispers in the wind. No word, no action, no situation is without cause and effect. Understanding this is how the world changes, one word, one action, one situation at a time

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Mindset: Exit The Madness

Mindset: Exit The Madness

The heart does not lie, judge or justify action. It only asks for that which it desires and then leads us to those yearnings without fear and apprehension while offering us no control over where it chooses to lead. It is our minds which must follow our hearts and our will which must make them do so. Reason can destroy our dreams and squash our desires if we follow the mind, which is capable of judgment and justification.

The world in which we inhabit is often corrupt and embroiled in confusion. We think about methods to survive the madness allowing our thought processes to guide us through the chaos. We believe reason can free us from what we can’t control.
But in doing so we allow the part of us, which is capable of judgment, justification and even deceit to make some of the most important decisions in our lives.

Do we truly want to make those decisions without the benefit of complete truth?
When we follow our hearts, we are led to places that fulfill us and we are never led astray. In fact, we are actually led out of the madness which consumes our thoughts and into the safety of true understanding and reasoning.

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Mindset: The Journey Into A Dream

Mindset: The Journey Into A Dream

Every destination is the beginning of a new journey just as every thought can the beginning of a new dream. Upon arrival, if we step back for a moment then we see where it all began. We further see why we started, how we have traveled and where we have been. And mostly we see where we are now and this is a must in order to move to other places we wish to go.

Stepping back in our lives does not make us weak, misguided or hinder us from moving forward. It gives us perspective and the tools such as humility and patience that we often find so difficult to use in everyday life, to strengthen our will as we dream. It is in the rare moments in which we reflect upon the rough road behind that we are allowed the opportunity of seeking the smoothest highway ahead to reach our next destination.

Taking a pause from the chaos of everyday life and after the moments of victory, even for only a moment, can sometimes be our only window in which to view the map of that long and narrow path that leads to the ultimate ends of our dreams.

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