Happiness Is Everything!
Product Description In his inspiring book, Happiness is Everything!, Chris Crawford reveals how to attain extreme happiness and personal joy. Discover inner peace, and tremendous satisfaction in your life. Achieve what's most important in life--to be happy. Happiness is Everything! provides you with the skills necessary to master the enjoyment of life. Everything you need can be found inside this amazing book. Inwardly explore the very foundation of what true happiness is all about! About the Author Chris Crawford has dedicated his life to the art of self-improvement. With an engineering degree from Hofstra University, New York, and a MBA degree from Penn State, he lives with his family in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. The author welcomes your comments and feedback. You can email Chris at: behappy@voicenet.com Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction "Man, unlike the animals, has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it." -Samuel Butler So busy living our lives, we lose sight of what's truly important--to enjoy it! The purpose of life becomes blurred with everyday inconveniences. So consumed and wrapped up in living our lives, we focus on what we want next and then decide who's to blame when we don't get it. Frantically climbing over one another to get to the next rung on a ladder that's suspended against nothing, and leading to nowhere, we fall prey to rising expectations that don't ever have a chance of matching reality. Frustration levels rise like a thermometer in an open fire. The battle scars of stress slowly etch a serious expression onto our faces. The obligatory facial wrinkles are reminders of the hard time we've served from a continual bombardment of life's trials and tribulations. Sadly, we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves and others. Life's offerings go unappreciated and we lose the ability to find joy. We live like a clam sealed shut, as we become numb and tune out life. Finding joy is like searching for your best friend in a thick London fog. You call out for happiness, and all you hear is a melancholy echo of silence. Happiness is not only evasive, it's illusive. In our quest, we must first ask ourselves the basic question, "What is happiness?" Is it winning a million dollars in the lottery or a big hit at the slot machines of your favorite casino? Can wealth buy it or maybe even rent it? Is happiness contingent on having a successful job or career? Is personal joy related to having a family to come home to? Can it be as simple as enjoying the simple things that life has to offer? Can watching a sunset, enjoying a home cooked meal, or reading a thought-provoking book make us happy? Can an afternoon stroll in the park or a trip to the beauty salon provide bliss? What about a nice seven course meal--a six-pack of beer and a hamburger? What makes you happy? Have you ever given it much thought? Is the pursuit of happiness a priority in your life? What is the special recipe that would make you jump out of bed in the morning rather than jumping off a cliff. Are you passionate about anything right now, or does your life feel empty and hollow? Psychologists have spent decades trying to understand what makes us happy. Anxiety, tension, and depression infiltrate our lives like termites on wood. As soon as we satisfy the biological urge to procreate our species, what's left? Are we sacrificing our lives away only to be rewarded by a firm handshake from the Grim Reaper when the time comes? Is the goal to pass the finish line of life as fast as we can, swing open the pearly gates, and anxiously ask St. Peter, "what for?" Jefferson said it well in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How many folks follow the last part of his advice? Years ago a roof overhead and a nice hot meal on the table were enough to make anyone happy. Today, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is countered by someone e