Surprise!!

I learned this week some helpful strategies for being happy in everyday life, some of which I already knew but a couple of new things as well. 
One of these things is to look at curiosity in your life.  Ask yourself, what it is that makes you curious?  Is it something you want to learn about - a skill perhaps, or acquiring knowledge on a topic.  What did you find curious in the past week?  What did you do about this curiosity? 
Another strategy was to look at the element of surprise in your life.  when were you surprised in the last week?  What surprised you?  What could surprise you in the next week?  Focus on positive surprises rather than negative ones if you can! 
The final one that I will put up today was the question 'When was the last time you did something that caused you not to notice the passing of time?'.  Quite often, we get more satisfaction from doing small, focused activities where we are both equally challenged and meeting a certain skill level, than doing nothing ie lying on the couch watching tv.  This is called a state of flow, and when we are in a state of flow, we are usually achieving quite well.
So, I guess if you think of curiosity, surprise and being in a state of flow, you can create a happy state of mind.  Mix this in with finding gratitude, kindness, positivity and optimism, and humour then you should be set!  I also think excitement could be added too - when was the last time you did something exciting?  Or were excited about something?  What are you excited about now?  As we get older, we tend to lose our sense of excitement, and I think that is a sad thing.  Without excitement in our lives, we potentially have nothing to live for.  It could be something as simple as being excited to have a cup of tea when you get home!  it doesn't have to be excitement for a bg holiday or something!

So, that is my happiness chat for the day!  Short and sweet and rather brief I am sorry but I am about to go to bed - I just needed to share my thoughts before going to bed and having them clog up my sleep processes!