Dear Friends, Here I would like to share with you a small part of my book. I will be extremely happy to receive your feedback and comments: " Happiness What is happiness? The answer for the question “What is happiness?” is different for everybody. Things that make us happy are completely different, depending of the stage of our life. As for me, I have changed my mind about happiness several times I my life already. That happened only because I want so! So, I want you to answer the question “What is happiness?” right now (before you read more), and then once more at the end of this section. Your answers may be different – that is okay, and you are really looking forward and trying to find happiness, or your answers may be the same – congratulations, you are on the right track on that stage of your life. Are we really happy? When we understand that everything, we are doing in our lives is right? Moreover, when we truly realize that everything, we have already reached is valuable now? I believe everybody at least once asked himself these questions, but only few really want to know the true answers. The truth is that we are afraid to admit to ourselves, that what surrounds us is what we have received only because we have told ourselves that we do not need anything more than we really need. Sometimes I remember childhood, when all my wishes were pure and innocent as they concentrated amongst only important things that brought me joy and happiness! For example, I played a lot with a small handmade toy ship, even as there were expensive ones, because that only toy brought me true happiness. I am wondering could I achieve something that I really want. Yes! Am I worried about fulfilling my wishes? No! The question is would these achievements be what I really need? Travelling once by train between Lviv and Kharkiv, I was watching «Demolition» 2015y. I like to borrow some quotes, stories or scenes from films, so I can compare them to my life. The main character in «Demolition» lost his wife in a car accident, and instead of being sad or even devastated he continued working, socializing, housework… finally, he understands that he was never in love with his wife, never happy with her. Some people would just watch that film and forget about it, but I tried to compare that situation to my life again. Several years ago, I was moving towards my goal with all my confidence. My goal was about money, a lot of money, like crazy amount of money! As a result, I was thinking about money day and night. I applied all my skills and talents towards that goal – I drew a bill 1000 000 000 dollars, I was saying that I have a lot of money, I was thankful for every little step towards my goal and was waiting for the day when I finally become really rich. Nothing else was on my mind at that moment. As a result of my hard work, my income was like 10 times more than average income for other people in my country. Nonetheless, I was not happy, and every time set higher bars to reach. At that moment, I could think only about becoming rich – about buying expensive cars and property, vacations in different new countries etc. Over some time, all that hard work really exhausted me. That was not like physical exhaustion, but more like psychological – always thinking about more and more sources of income. Nothing else matters. Friends invited me to skydive – I rejected because it is just a waste of time, co-workers suggested to drink some beer – I rejected because it is just a waste of money. That was until one day when my friend told me a phrase which completely changed my attitude. He was originally from Poltava, from a poor family, forced to go to work without even graduating from college in Kyiv where he studied for two years. At first, he unloaded cars on the railroad, and then sold goods on the local market, until M-Way network marketing managers noticed him. While working for M-Way, he learned about “Four groups of people” (workers, small businessmen, business owners, investors). From that moment his interest in earnings began, and it only grew bigger. He was making more and more money – either for new Lexus, or for new house. We also became closer, constantly talking about money, as we both focused on making as much money as possible and all different ways of earning more money. One day when I came to visit him and mentioned the construction of new residential complex “Manhattan” in the area of Horodotska Street, but he suddenly replied, “I am not interested now”. It was a complete shock for me, and I even asked him once more if he was serious about it. He calmly explained me his point of view: “I spent several years of my life succeeding financially. Did I achieve something? Yes! Without college education, I was promoted to a chief engineer at an enterprise (since I mastered specialization independently), I make money on the stock market, and I resell large amounts of different goods. Nevertheless, am I really a millionaire? No, and I feel miserable. Many people in my place would be happy, but I was not. I was so heavily looking forward for the moment when I became a millionaire to feel happy, that I barely missed the opportunity to be happy now!” I understand, that even if I do not have everything desired now, I could enjoy a lot of different things in my life that I already have”. That ended our conversation and I went home thinking that my friend had “gone astray”. Three months passed since our conversation and I was checking monthly income in my office. I compared current income to those from several past months – they were similar. I was devastated! Why, despite strict planning, all hard work and full dedication I have reached almost nothing? At that exact moment, I remembered about my friend’s words, “I was so heavily looking forward for the moment when I became a millionaire to feel happy, that I barely missed the opportunity to be happy now!” I looked at myself from the side – an exhausted expectant guy who was sitting on a chair and almost cried who imagined his house to the smallest details, but did not pay attention to his current apartment, the guy who is "loaded" in his thoughts and expectations, but abandoned the people around him and their need for communication! Suddenly, I got it! I understood the truth – if you are poor and only waiting for money to become happy, there are two different ways in life for you: earn money and become happy (or you may not become), or be happy right now and, when you got your money, you would 100% be already happy! How you can become happy The moment I acknowledged these things, I was really shocked! I just could not believe it - I spent a few years of life, waiting for happiness, at a same time when I could already be happy now! But I was happy! I was so happy that I realized that even the people around me started looking at me. Probably, they thought that I had some mental issues – here I was sitting as usual and out of nowhere laughing at something, suddenly happy. That day changed my basic attitude in life dramatically, instead of the usual "I am a billionaire", I confidently and with a smile on my face said: "I am extremely happy!”. Some time passed, and on Sunday I went to the church service. After the service, the priest asked some volunteer that helped the disabled who lived in the monastery, to give a speech. Her speech in general was about involving people to help others, but I was really impressed the part of her speech, which I will try to describe in as much detail as possible! It was evening and Natalia (that is the name of the volunteer) was preparing dinner for people who lived in the monastery. One of them was sitting by the window and suddenly exclaimed: "Natalia, Natalia, watch here true beauty." Natalia went to the window, looked through, and without noticing anything special returned to cooking. A few minutes later, the story repeated itself, and again, noticing nothing special, Natalia returned to her cooking. But when he called Natalia for the third time to look at "true beauty", she answered: "Mykola, what are you showing me? I do not see anything there." He replied: "Look what a beautiful crow there"! Natalia watched the crow and, seeing nothing really special about it, returned to cooking. But after a few minutes she realized how little a person needs to be happy… And what did I understand? At that moment, I realized how you can make yourself happy! Happy at any time, under any circumstances, in any mood! And this is really easy enough - each of us can just enjoy the simple moments of life as Mykola! Absolutely everyone! In order to succeed, we do not need to learn some meditation techniques, visit some special courses or go to the psychologist so that he put you on the couch and ask “Well, let us go back in time to the period when you were 4-5 years old and think about what injuries or problems from your childhood have made you so unhappy now?” And then again - we just do not notice a lot the things around us! As Natalia did not even notice the crow that walked around the yard for 20 minutes and collected something for herself, so do we - going to work in the morning and not even looking around, where we are surrounded by thousands of beautiful things that can make us happy! Ask yourself when was the last time you admired the sunset, when was the last time you watched the flowers growing in the flowerbed near your house, when you noticed like sunlight is passing through the treetops creating flashes, hitting people like sun bunnies. We have stopped perceiving the world from the positive side! And that is our main mistake! Most people say that there is so little positive things in our lives and all that I have listed above cannot even be equated with the number of problems that surround us. But things are not as they seem in our case! And I will tell you how to realize it. You know the majority of the people think about those things that they remember most during the day. So it turns out that until we pay attention to the positive things, we ignore them, we do not compare how many positive things happened and how many negative. And at the end of the day we realize that we are surrounded only by problems. All we need to do is start noticing positive things, start paying attention to them, rejoice the fact that they really happen. Start with the most basic things like a cup of coffee in the morning, good weather, or if the weather is rainy at least you have an umbrella that protects you… And when you finally begin to notice and enjoy all that positive things - your attitude to everything in your life will change. Just one day try to focus on all the positive things that surround you. And your day will be wonderful, you will be in a good mood and you will be happy! And now before you are back to reading this book – try to implement in practice the statement “I am really happy!” just for three days in a row. Convince yourself now! Stay focused on that statement for three days and pay attention only to positive things that surround you! Our path to Happiness in the nearest future When you begin to realize that it is already possible to be happy, you need to look at all your desires and goals and ask yourself: "What will bring me what I have been striving for / or have wanted all my life? " And give yourself an honest answer - will it make you happier than you are now or not.... "
Your point of view about the nature of happiness and how to achieve it was interesting; thank you for sharing it. You have some work to do on the written language, but no doubt you'll continue to improve your already good grasp of English. Replace most, if not all, of the exclamation marks with periods. Exclamation marks are used for extraordinary emphasis and not routine punctuation.
As it says in the description for this forum "Note that this area is for discussing the work of other authors, it is NOT a place to promote your own work." I don't know how we can be any clearer than that The place to ask for feedback is in the workshop but you need to meet the requirements first ie two crits given for each one requested https://www.writingforums.org/workshop/
