The below adages appear in several places on the Internet.
Five Simple Rules to be Happy
Free your heart from hatred.
Free your mind from worries.
Live simply.
Give more.
Expect less.
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No one can go back and make a brand new start. Anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.
Disappointments are like road humps, they slow you down a bit but you enjoy the smooth road afterwards. Don’t stay on the humps too long. Move on!
When you feel down because you didn’t get what you want, just sit tight and be happy, because God has thought of something better to give you.
When something happens to you, good or bad, consider what it means. There’s a purpose to life’s events, to teach you how to laugh more or not to cry too hard.
You can’t make someone love you, all you can do is be someone who can be loved, the rest is up to the person to realize your worth. It’s better to lose your pride to the one you love, than to lose the one you love because of pride.
We spend too much time looking for the right person to love or finding fault with those we already love, when instead we should be perfecting the love we give.
Never abandon an old friend. You will never find one who can take his place.
I don’t understand the part of the adage that says “Expect less”. Shouldn’t we expect that we are complete and have everything we need? Doesn’t that mean we expect a lot?
To anon above,
“Expect less” out of the world. You have the right sense, that our expectations can be large, but they need to be Spirit based. If we put our expectations in the world, for example, into money, fame, and people, we set outselves up for disappointment. These things often fail us. But God never fails us. Expect less out of the world and more out of God…this is the route to superabundance–true abundance of spiritual substance.
Regarding “God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.”
Actually God did promise days without pain and sorrow and tears in the book of Revelation.
I guess it’s important to be clear about whether our practice is based in the absolute or the relative.
Good human advice comes from the relative – healing from the absolute, right? Working from the absolute we see adjustments in the relative.
Just some ideas . . . with love . . .
To anon above,
Yesiree, you have the right idea. God is pure Love, pure harmony, and knows only love and harmony. “God didn’t promise days without pain in a material sense of things,” would be a better paraphrase. It’s spiritual reality, as outlined in Revelation that you mention above, where there is no more pain or sorrow.
hello Evan !
I’m Patrick from Douala Cameroon ( Africa) I have just discovered your site and blog very inspiring ! Since I appreciate your articles of CS journal and Sentinel
as I rode the article relative of hapiness I would like to know something
my girlfriend and I have had many problems so we finally decided to break our relationship but I have been praying and we reconciled last week after 6 months . right now I have discoverd how much I love her it,s as if i see her for the first time !so when reading this article it,s as if it was writen for me !
thank you so much
Hi Patrick,
Nice to hear from you! If you’ve been praying for 6 months about your relationships to your girlfriend, I can see how a reconciliation would feel like a whole new coming together. Your thought has spiritualized, gone up, higher to divine Love, and the effect is going to be more love felt all the way around. I look forward to hearing from you again. Thanks for your comment. Cheers.