Tracefossil

“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation. It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is present oriented.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason.”
― Jennifer Elisabeth, Born Ready: Unleash Your Inner Dream Girl

“Still others assert that they have grown enormously as a result of their traumatic experience, discovering a maturity and strength of character that they didn’t know they had—for example, reporting having found “a growth and a freedom to…give fuller expression to my feelings or to assert myself.” A new and more positive perspective is a common theme among those enduring traumas or loss, a renewed appreciation of the preciousness of life and a sense that one must live more fully in the present. For example, one bereaved person rediscovered that “having your health and living life to the fullest is a real blessing. I appreciate my family, friends, nature, life in general. I see a goodness in people.”12 A woman survivor of a traumatic plane crash described her experience afterward: “When I got home, the sky was brighter. I paid attention to the texture of sidewalks. It was like being in a movie.”13 Construing benefit in negative events can influence your physical health as well as your happiness, a remarkable demonstration of the power of mind over body. For example, in one study researchers interviewed men who had had heart attacks between the ages of thirty and sixty.14 Those who perceived benefits in the event seven weeks after it happened—for example, believing that they had grown and matured as a result, or revalued home life, or resolved to create less hectic schedules for themselves—were less likely to have recurrences and more likely to be healthy eight years later. In contrast, those who blamed their heart attacks on other people or on their own emotions (e.g., having been too stressed) were now in poorer health.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want