Make One Person Happy

"Make one person happy each day and in 40 years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time at least."
~ Charley Willey
Thank you, Charley Willey for doing the math. 

 Caring and kindness count. Just making one person happy each day will add up to thousands of happy people in a lifetime.

 The enlightened spiritual teacher Buddha (623-543 B.C.) said, "Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others."

 For those following Buddha's teachings, spreading metta, goodwill and loving kindness, is one of the 10 paramis, the qualities of perfection developed over many lifetimes.

 "Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds," Buddha said.

 The best way to spread happiness is to show genuine concern for others. Put yourself in their shoes, try to understand where they're coming from. Every person has a point of view. Listen for a change. Understand and validate others.

 “Real unselfishness," observed writer George Santayana, "consists in sharing the interest of others."

 Miriam, a faithful dailycelebrations.com user in New Orleans, mailed me the gift of a hand-made journal which featured quotations and thoughts from this website. Her initiative was a wonderful, unexpected kindness that made me SO happy.

 Spread your light. And here's a little shameless self-promotion: Share Daily Celebrations.

 What are you waiting for? As Dr. Frank Crane urged: "The Golden Rule is of no use whatsoever unless you realize that it is your move."
Happiness is an inside job.

Copyright © 1999-2017 MsCator, All Rights Reserved

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

W.E.B. Du Bois

Image
"Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller lives." ~ W.E.B. Du Bois W.E.B. Du Bois African American writer and teacher William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was born on this day in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, three years after the end of the American Civil War.  He was the most influential black leader of the first half of the 20th century. "One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder," said Du Bois, who was his high school's valedictorian. Educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, he was an advocate for education and equality. He published The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), the first case study of a U.S. black community which used ethnography, history, and statistics. In his masterpiece The Souls of Black Fol
Read more

Edith Wharton

Image
"Life is either always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tight rope." ~ Edith Wharton Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was born Edith Newbold Jones on this day in New York City, to a privileged family. She spent summers in Rhode Island and traveled throughout Europe. "The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it," she said. Faced with an unhappy marriage, Wharton took up writing, what she described as "an irresistible call," to deal with her heartache and stress. She lived in Paris and had a close relationship with novelist Henry James, a fellow American expatriate. She said, "There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." Wharton's first major work, The House of Mirth (1905), told the story of ill-fated Lily Bart, 29, and her tragic quest for marriage and wealth. "The only thing to do." she said, "is to hug one's f
Read more

James A. Michener

Image
"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as  they tangle with human emotions." ~ James A. Michener American novelist and short story writer James Albert Michener (1907–1997) was born on this day in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  Abandoned by his parents, he grew up struggling with poverty and credits his foster mother for fostering his love of books. "I've always been a sucker for a narrative," he said. "The great historical novels. I read all of (Honore de) Balzac when I was 14." Michener followed this passion for history by writing his own sweeping tales. He was known for conducting extensive research ("total immersion". His epic novels focused on specific geographical locations and historical facts across generations, whether Hawaii (1959), Chesapeake (1978), or Texas (1985).  "I never wrote anything that was published until I was 40," he said and won the Pulitzer for his first book of fiction, T
Read more