Happiness is a state of mind linked with a positive emotion.  Can being happy change anything in your life?  Absolutely!  It changes everything.

Happiness is contagious; it spreads like wildfire.  One great effect of happiness is the health benefits.  We all know how hard it is to be happy when you are sick or in pain.   Yet, that is when we need it the most.  Yes, folks, happiness will heal you, and our world, one smile at a time.

Memories can make us happy when we recall them.  What makes us happy now will be different after a catastrophe.  Yes, once our comfort zone has been removed, and we are in real trouble, happiness could be surviving long enough to be rescued.  Happiness could be finding another human after a disaster, just to talk to and make sure you’re not dreaming, but also to help each other survive.  Imagine being so thirsty you can’t open your mouth and your tongue is drying in place. Along comes someone with clean water, no matter whom that person is, you will welcome them with open arms, and an open heart.  Happiness will emerge from this encounter.

Imagine if we were able to put our differences aside during the steady normal times the way we do after a catastrophe.  Happiness out of survival is a powerful example for us to reflect.  In doing so we challenge ourselves to find compassion in all people, places, and things, then turn it into happiness.

We all have each other to count on during a disaster.  Let’s act that way without one.  Happiness will heal all of us and also our world.  If we all share what we have, our world will change.  There will be no need to buy a rake if your neighbor has one.  The same is true for all we have.  Instead of living as separate individual units, we would be one collective body.  The word waste would never be mentioned.  We as a species were never meant to live separate, each to its own.  One of the most important things we share is food and shelter.  Grassroots gardening can be expanded to include everyone.  Let’s give back ownership of our world to the community.  This should be the only battle we engage in as a country.  We have all we need to begin this process.  With open hearts and minds, we together can accomplish anything.  At least sharing love with one another.

Once we take the first steps, we would care for one another.  This would go beyond anything you can imagine.  No one would ever be left alone unless they wanted to be.  We would rely on each other to lift one another up and be accountable for getting each other healthy, productive, and loving.  Love has the ability to cure all ailments.

For so long now, we have been writing down our recommendations, contracts, agreements, and stipulations so everyone knows what belongs to whom.  Let’s forget the paperwork and start being accountable to one another regardless of what the paper says.  No one will ever be punished for helping another.  Once you begin to share even one thing with another, a hundred will share back with you.

It’s time we take our country back from the corporations who have guided us to be like this.  As long as we need them, the corporations will dictate the rules of our life.  Once we show them that they need us, we can dictate the rules of their actions.

You may think sharing with your neighbor will not make much of a difference, but it will when everyone gets on board.  We cannot continue to be a nation of separate individual units who all have to have one of everything that exists.  Since we are the most intelligent species on the planet, it’s a surprise to me how we have fallen into such a material existence.  It would be a lot easier if we could turn back the clock, and nip the greed syndrome in the butt when it began.  But since that is not possible, we must work with what we have.

Help one another and we change the world, with happiness, one act of kindness at a time.