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Happy Life Tip of the Week, Issue #125- Ordinary Happiness
August 17, 2011


Like the sunflower, let happiness be your ordinary, everyday mode of consciousness.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.

Iris Murdoch

Hello Friends, Like the sunflower, let happiness be your ordinary, everyday mode of consciousness.

Lately, I have been inspired by sunflowers. These magnificent flowers always make me smile. No matter how common they are, seeing them by the side of the road or in a garden gives me a little boost.

Sunflowers do not work well in cut flower arrangements I have found. They do not have the elegance of roses or lilies. They are common ordinary flowers that evoke feelings of joy, hope, honesty, courage, and constancy.

Happiness is like a sunflower. It does not do well in arrangements, but must be honestly felt in its natural state to be effective. It is not elegant or showy like joy, ecstasy, or rapture, but ordinary and common in its enthusiasm for being. We live a happy life when happy enthusiasm is our ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness.

Sunflowers model happiness for us in other ways. For example, they give more than they take. These low maintenance plants provide an abundance of seeds that can be used for food or to make fuels like biodiesel. Here are some other ways that sunflowers model a happy life:
  • Give More than You Take
  • Grow Where You are Planted
  • Follow the Sun
  • Be Bold and Beautiful
  • Grow Wild
  • Reach for the Sun
  • Live in Groups with Others
  • Stand Tall
  • Live Abundantly
So take your inspiration from sunflowers. Model happiness for your family, friends and neighbors when you-

Like the sunflower, let happiness be your ordinary, everyday mode of consciousness.

Affirmation
My ordinary mode of consciousness is happiness. I stay busy and lively and focused outside myself.

Journal or Meditation Question
What is my ordinary mode of consciousness? Is that the mode I want? What could I do to make be happy more of the time? What quality of sunflowers inspires me to be happy?

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