How happy are you?  I mean, how happy ARE you?  As opposed to how happy you want everyone else to believe you are…?

Have you ever really thought about this?  My friend Kendal Perkins (Chamber shout out to Apex Architectural Services) shared the TED Talk linked below, noting how it referenced “outliers”—a topic covered very well by Malcom Gladwell in his book creatively titled “Outliers” (a highly recommended read, by the way).

I enjoy being happy.  I suppose when you read that you automatically want to award me the Captain Obvious hat; I mean, who doesn’t enjoy being happy?  Well, as it turns out, many folks.  I enjoy being happy—and consciously work to be happy.  I know I perform at my peak when I am happy and not distracted by the little things that can easily add up and drag me down.  However, being happy is not the opposite of being unhappy—and that is an important point.  Life is not a coin with “happy” on one side and “unhappy” on the other; it is a spectrum with happy on one end and a variety of “other” states towards the other end, each of which detracts from our ability to “be” to some degree.

Little things are just that; but a lot of little things can be difficult to manage. It is a little thing to wish you had your neighbor’s car; to dislike the way your hair looks today; to get upset with the guy that cut you off in traffic; to constantly think back to that little remark a co-worker said, what, last week?  But these things, together, will change who you are if you let them do so.  As they bother you, they affect your ability to reason, to think clearly, and in short—to succeed.  Think about what is important and what is temporary, fleeting, small and really just not worth worrying over—you have so much more to gain!

We would all be better off heeding the lessons Mr. Shawn Achor shares in this (12 minute) video—and sharing them.  I know I’ll be thinking about it a lot and I hope you will join me in thinking a little more positively.

By the way, I hope you follow the Natchitoches Area Chamber of Commerce on Twitter (@NatchChamber), LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook; we are constantly telling the great story that is the evolution of Natchitoches!  From the “Best Southern Small Town” award by USA Today’s reader’s poll, to the hundreds of Certified acres for economic development, we have the spectrum covered—good living, good for business, good for you!
Tony